Foreign Relations of the United States, Conference at Quebec, 1944

841.244/9–844: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

secret
us urgent

London, September 8, 1944.

7352. I am cabling you below the text of a letter dated September 7 which I have just received from Mr. Eden in relation to the renewal of the British meat contract with Argentina:

“In my letter to you of the 25th August,¹ I explained that I was consulting the Ministry of Food about the renewal of our meat contract with Argentina in the light of certain observations of the State Department which you were kind enough to send me on the 14th August.² I am now in a position to give you our answer on the general question of the particular points to which the United States Government attach importance.

The State Department suggest that, by prolonging the negotiations and taking a firm stand on price and other terms of the contract, these negotiations could be utilized to strengthen our common political stand. We have always been, as you know, most anxious to maintain a close parallel policy with the United States Government towards Argentina, and in the present instance, you may certainly rely on us to do everything we can to avoid allowing the Argentines to derive any political comfort or encouragement from the renewal of the contract. It is indeed inherently a commercial question and we anticipate a period of hard commercial bargaining before the negotiations reach their eventual conclusion. In the nature of things, we have no interest in giving the Argentines any particular reason to suppose that a successful outcome is assured in advance or in agreeing to terms which they could interpret as reflecting any condonation of their political shortcomings.

Mr. Stettinius, in his recent conversation with the Minister of State,³ expressed the hope that the contract would cover only a short term.⁴ The question of the duration of the contract is, of course, a relative one, but we have to look to the needs of ourselves and our Allies during the cricitical post-war period as well as for the period of actual hostilities. We have no desire to conclude a contract running for a longer period than is strictly necessary. If nothing else, our own interests would dictate that the duration of the contract should be as short as possible since our meat purchases constitute one of the few weapons which we have left to protect our large interests in Argentina, which are threatened as never before by the present virulently nationalistic regime. This weapon would, for instance, normally be extremely useful in, say, a couple of years’ time, when the imminent termination of the Mitre Law⁵ (in 1947) governing our railway concessions will leave these particularly vulnerable. But our paramount duty both to our own people and to certain of our Allies is to ensure that, during the acutely difficult post-war years, they shall be adequately fed; and the case made out by our Ministry of Food that only a longer contract will ensure this as regards meat is entirely convincing. I need not, I think, go into all the technical details including the reasons why it is so important that the Combined Food Board should be able to count not merely on obtaining Argentine meat at a reasonable commercial price, but on continuing to command the total exportable surplus. The British Food Mission in Washington are, of course, in possession of all the technical details involved and if it would interest the State Department to have a complete summary of the technical aspects of this complex question, we shall be ready to arrange for this to be given to them. Meanwhile, I trust that we can continue to enjoy the confidence of the United States Government while we play our difficult hand in this important matter which we shall hope to do without giving the Argentines any avoidable political advantages. We shall do our best to keep the Argentines guessing about all the aspects of this negotiation as far as is consistent with eventually bringing it to a successful conclusion and to see to it that the present regime derives no strength or authority from this commercial trans action in their own or anybody else’s eyes. In this we should, of course, be helped by the absence of embarrassing press speculation, whether emanating from Washington or London.”

In connection with the foregoing, please see my 6927 of August 25⁶ and Department’s 6091 of August 2⁷ and 6339 of August 11.⁸

Winant

1. See ante, p. 164.
2. Not printed.
3. Richard Law.
4. See Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. vii, p. 342.
5. The reference is to article 8 of Argentine Law No. 5315 of October 1, 1907. The provisions of this article, which dealt with duty-free importation of materials used in railroad development in Argentina, were to expire in 1947. For text of the law, see Registro national, vol. iv, 1907, p. 441. For an English translation, see General Railway Law and Regulations, translated by the Buenos Aires Great Southern and Buenos Aires Western Railways (Buenos Aires: The English Printery, 1940), p. 191.
6. Ante, p. 164.
7. See Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. vii, p. 337.
8. See ibid., p. 342.