Office of the Historian

816.01/456: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Uruguay (Dawson)

Washington, May 13, 1944—8 p.m.

264. Please inform the Foreign Minister27 in strict confidence, with reference to the comments which he made to you as reported in your telegram no. 439 of May 1128 of the Department’s views regarding recognition of the new Salvadoran administration, as follows:

The revolution of April 2 was indeed forcibly suppressed and severe reprisals were taken by General Martínez against the revolutionaries. However, General Martínez resigned the presidency not because of a further revolutionary outbreak but because of a general strike which largely paralyzed the country. According to the Department’s information the strike showed great unanimity on the part of the populace; the President’s chief supporters, including the Cabinet, advised him to resign; there is no evidence whatsoever of Axis intrigue; and in as much as the first designate has succeeded to the presidency, it would seem that legal forms had been followed. With the departure of General Martínez from El Salvador and the lifting of the general strike, conditions would appear to be gradually returning to normal.

The Department therefore considers that there are fundamental differences between recognition in the case of El Salvador and in the cases of Argentina and Bolivia.29

Hull
  1. Juan José Serrato.↩
  2. Not printed; it reported that Foreign Minister Serrato was awaiting further information from the Uruguayan Ambassador in Mexico, Mateo Marques Castro, and was hesitant to accord too prompt recognition of the new Salvadoran Government in view of newspaper reports of extensive bloodshed in El Salvador and the delay in recognizing the Bolivian and Argentine regimes (816.01/456). For correspondence on problems of recognizing the Bolivian and Argentine regimes, see pp. 427 ff., and pp. 288 ff., respectively.↩
  3. The Ambassador in Uruguay answered this instruction on May 14, 6 p.m., in telegram 442 (816.01/463), in which he stated that Uruguay agreed that recognition of El Salvador was in order but would extend recognition tardily for the reasons indicated in telegram 439.↩