837.61351/4492: Telegram
The Ambassador in Cuba (Braden) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:04 p.m.]
861. Further comments on the Tinguaro case were contained in my telegram number 851, December 21, 5 [8] p.m.,23 which crossed the Department’s number 1085, December 22. In connection with [Page 211] the latter it seems to me that the statement that a settlement “could only be on the basis of reconstruction” overlooks the problem of the mill’s unprofitable record and the moral and legal responsibilities of the directors to the stockholders. To my mind reconstruction by the company in the light of that record would have been less realistic than Reiser’s suggestions for increased quota and reduced railroad tariff and that the Cuban Government’s refusal even to consider anything except reconstruction (the establishment of a different industry at the mill site or the transfer of Tinguaro labor elsewhere for example) has rendered any satisfactory solution exceedingly difficult.
Unless the mill should be sold or unless Keiser concludes that the prospect for a few years of large crops (and hence perhaps profitable Tinguaro operations) is such as to warrant his agreeing to operate I see little prospect of avoiding further controversy24 which may well lead to an international claim. For this (as well as for the reasons cited in my recent reports) I believe we should carefully refrain from any action that could be misinterpreted in the sense that our Government in the slightest degree condones this demagogic and irresponsible seizure of private American property by the Cuban Government.
- Not printed.↩
- The controversy continued into 1944 and made more difficult the negotiations in January and February for purchase by the United States of Cuban alcohol and molasses. It was solved in February 1944, by the sale of Central Tinguaro to an all-Cuban group of investors, headed by Julio Lobo. Government control over the mill was ended by Decree No. 593 published in Gaceta Oficial, No. 141 of March 15, 1944.↩