810.154/3096: Airgram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Honduras (Erwin)27
A–389. Your A–431, September 22, 12 noon.28 In conferences with representatives of the War Department and the Public Roads Administration it has been agreed that work on the pioneer highway in Honduras will be suspended on October 31. It is the intention by that date to push through an all weather highway on the entire Honduran section although those parts as yet uncompleted will of course be constructed to lower standards than the sections which have already been completed.
The War Department and the Public Roads Administration are in urgent consultation with respect to the purchase by the latter of machinery and supplies owned or subject to recapture by the former and not wanted elsewhere. The Public Roads Administration will endeavor rapidly to build up an organization to undertake construction under the Project Statement29 already concluded, as early as possible in the forthcoming dry season.
The Department believes that these measures will cushion any shock which the liquidation of the pioneer highway project may occasion to Honduran economy.
Please inform the appropriate Honduran authorities of the foregoing.
- A similar message was sent to the Ambassador in Nicaragua as airgram No. A–558, September 25, 7 p.m.; it carried the supplementary information that the South Nicaragua section of the Pioneer Highway would be completed as originally planned, and that some work might be undertaken on the Rama Road (810.154/3081). For correspondence on the Rama Road Project, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. vi, pp. 568 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩
- A general agreement between the Honduran road authority and the United States Public Roads Administration, determining the location and the cost of the section of the Inter-American Highway traversing Honduras. This Project Statement and those for other countries referred to subsequently were signed by the PRA after authorization by the Department of State.↩