715.1715/1634
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of the American Republics (Bonsal)
The Nicaraguan Ambassador came in at his request. He stated that his Government had been informed that a group of Honduran citizens accompanied by Honduran law enforcement officials had recently proceeded to a point known as San Carlos on the north bank of the Segovia or Coco River for the purpose of tapping wild rubber trees in accordance with a contract which the Ambassador understands was concluded with our Rubber Development Corporation. The Ambassador wanted me to know that his Government wishes to interpose no objection whatever to the extraction of rubber which is so vitally needed in our war effort. However, the point in question is located on territory to which Nicaragua has a claim which is, in fact, involved in a procedure whereby the United States, Venezuela, and Costa Rica have offered friendly offices to Honduras and Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan Government does not propose to take any formal action in this matter but it does wish the Department to know that it does not consider that its failure to protest can be held as in any way improving the Honduran claim to the territory in question. The thought of the Nicaraguan Government apparently is that this uncontested rubber operation might later be advanced by the Hondurans as indicating an act of occupation on their part in this territory.
The Ambassador left no written communication with me. I gathered from what he said that the Nicaraguan representative in Tegucigalpa, Señor Gonzáles, had been instructed to make some wholly informal observations to the Hondurans. The Ambassador was under the impression, although he had no definite information, that the foreign offices of Costa Rica and Venezuela would also be approached by the Nicaraguan Government in the same manner as he had approached the Department.