811.34553B/10–1244: Telegram
The Ambassador in Portugal (Norweb) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6:38 p.m.]
3128. ReEmbs 3118, October 11, 8 p.m., and previous. With further reference to the Santa Maria conversations, the following comment is submitted:
I have had, beginning Monday the 9th, three conversations with Sampaio and two long sessions the 10th and 11th with Salazar. The message I was authorized to deliver by the Department’s 2678 of October 6, 4 p.m., was most useful in breaking the impasse; although happily it never became necessary to present the note formally. We have kept our sights on the final objective and have attained it by indirection by having the gist of the message reach Salazar informally through Sampaio.
It was Salazar’s rock-ribbed thesis throughout our 4-hour Tuesday31 and the better part of yesterday’s meeting (as it had been he said throughout the negotiations) that it was indispensable for the two Governments to find “juridical and political basis”—in the absence of the alliance on which the Anglo-Portuguese agreement was built—for the agreements we earnestly sought and the Portuguese viewed with sympathy.
Salazar held out tenaciously for our prior confirmation in the form of a letter (3118 of October 11), as the “juridical and political basis” before him [he] on his part could assure commitments. He felt with all the ardor of which his legalistic mind is capable that we were asking him to sign a blank check. He appealed constantly to reason and orderliness.
It was only upon my earnest and persistent personal appeal that he said “Yes” and drafted a telegram to the Azores authorizing immediate construction on the major project, observing that my personal assurance that I would seek prompt action from Washington upon the letter would be acceptable. He took pains to emphasize, however, the difficulty of his position and that of the Portuguese Government if we should fail Portuguese offer to participate in the liberation of Portuguese territory, a participation indispensable to Portugal’s prestige and honor.
For convenience, the documents are enumerated which are necessary to the contemplated arrangement:
- 1.
- Our communication confirming our acceptance of Portugal’s direct and indirect participation (Embassy’s 3118).
- 2.
- Salazar’s simultaneous acknowledgment and acceptance.
- 3.
- The over-all Santa Maria agreement, also for simultaneous signature by Salazar and me. This procedure eliminates the danger of an order of precedence, for the Timor commitment on our part and the Santa Maria commitment on the Portuguese part are assumed simultaneously.
- 4.
- The complementary agreements provided for in article 4 of the over-all agreement.
- 5.
- The ultimate recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delegations.
It is opportune to outline the advantages—greater than the British obtained via higher price—of the arrangements agreed to in principle subject to ratification of the Department.
- a.
- With regard to the first document, paragraph 1 above, Salazar said that he had furnished a copy to the British Ambassador who told me he had telegraphed his Government expressing the belief that it furnished the basis for agreement.
- However, Colonel Payne whose presence here has been most helpful for the presentation of the War Department’s views expresses reservations in the light of his instructions and the Combined Chiefs of Staff decision (letter of May 19, 1944, from the Secretary of War to the Secretary of State enclosed with the Department’s instruction 1443 of May 21, 3 p.m.).
- We have studied with the greatest care the wording of both the CCS decision and the proposed letter and feel that the letter fits within the former.
- b.
- We obtain from these documents, even though we have no alliance to invoke, better terms than did the British, in fact all we ask. Furthermore, we are not in exchange committed to prior political and economic guarantees.
- c.
- Among the advantages are: (a) Pan-American Airways is not specifically mentioned; (b) Portugal, in Salazar’s words a “poor country”, the reputation of whose Prime Minister has been built not on generosity, pays its share; (c) the bugbear of British insinuation into control has been eliminated.
- d.
- But the greatest significance of yesterday’s development is the long step which Salazar’s decisions represent toward leading Portugal into the war. Persuasion, reason, frank thrashing out of issues—and not the big stick which to this neutral imbued with all the juridical considerations of the traditional neutral could well place us, in his mind, in the position of using our superior power to impose our demands—have triumphed. Salazar … is not, I feel confident, unhappy.
In all of this, the urgency of a prompt favorable reply is patent.
- October 10.↩