810.74/675: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Argentina (Armour)
14. The Department authorizes you to approach the Foreign Minister22 regarding the proposal that Transradio International refuse messages in secret language to or from non-American countries (your 2669, December 30, 7 p.m.23), along the following lines:
This Government can not agree to participation by American interests in the rendering of such service to the Axis as enables it to [Page 513] destroy personnel and shipping of the United States and its Allies. Consequently, it proposes to instruct the American interests in Transradio International to concert with the British interests to have the company refuse all messages in secret language to or from non-American countries. It feels free, in the spirit of the Rio resolutions,24 to invoke the sympathetic understanding of the Argentine Government for the position in which these United States interests now find themselves, and its agreement to this measure for the common defense of all the American republics.
The Department is suggesting to the British Foreign Office that your British colleague be given instructions similar to the above. You should wait until he has received such instructions and then take the indicated action in concert with him. The precise timing of your approach to the Argentine Government is left to your discretion.
You may consider it advisable to present this matter to the Foreign Minister in writing, so as to obtain a written reply.
- Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, p. 184.↩
- Resolutions of the Third Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the American Republics held at Rio de Janeiro, January 15–28, 1942; see Department of State Bulletin, February 7, 1942, pp. 117 ff. For correspondence concerning this Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, pp. 6 ff.↩