Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, The American Republics, Volume VII

103.9169/10–244

The Ambassador in Peru ( White ) to the Secretary of State

No. 1579

Lima , October 2, 1944.
[Received October 10.]

Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s Circular Airgram from the Foreign Economic Administration of September 16, 1944, 12 p.m.⁶ relative to proposed modifications in the procedure for the routing and handling of copies of Import Recommendations.

The Embassy is hesitant to bring this matter to the attention of the Country Agency, particularly in view of the fact that in the not too distant future, it is assumed that Import Recommendations will no longer be required. In addition, several modifications have already been made in the procedure since originally adopted, and further modifications are not deemed advisable at this time. The Country Agency, as originally set up, issued a Certificate of Necessity for commodities under allocation and a Certificate or Recommendation for commodities not under allocation. With the beginning of the Decentralization Plan on the first of April 1943, the Import Recommendation form was agreed to by all and adopted. As of the first of April 1944 the Import Recommendation form which had been in use for the past year was modified upon the suggestion of the Foreign Economic Administration and the present form put into use, with the result that the Country Agency found it necessary to scrap several thousand of the old Import Recommendation forms already printed and void those in the hands of applicants.

The Peruvian Government has been led to believe that the system of import control as constituted under the present Decentralization Plan is rapidly on its way out, and any attempt to modify the present system at this time would only lead the Peruvian authorities to believe that the plan was of a more permanent nature than it had been led to believe. Therefore, the Peruvian Government might again reopen the question of instituting its own system of import control. It is believed best to let the whole subject of import control die out as rapidly as possible and not call unnecessary attention to it by constant modifications and revisions of the procedure.

As at present set up, a complete set of five copies of the Import Recommendation form is sold to the applicant, and a one sol stamp is affixed to copy No. 2, which is then retained as a file copy by the Country Agency. Applicants do not usually purchase just one set at a time, so there are probably several thousand sets at present in the hands of importers throughout the country to be filled out and transmitted to the Country Agency as the occasion demands. It certainly would be impractical to recall all such outstanding Import Recommendations and issue others as would have to be done if the proposed procedure were adopted because copy No. 2 with the affixed stamp could not be sent to the Embassy for its files, but would have to be retained by the Country Agency. All outstanding sets of Import Recommendations would have to be recalled and new ones issued, on which a stamp would be affixed to copy No. 1.

It is believed that the trade would soon learn that copies of the Import Recommendations are not forwarded by the Embassy to the Foreign Economic Administration in Washington. There would be nothing to prevent a few unscrupulous applicants from modifying an Import Recommendation by changing the amount of any given commodity granted by the Country Agency as indicated on the approved copy received by the applicant, and there would be no ready way to catch such falsifications.⁷ If a system of control is not going to make it possible to exercise an effective control, then there would appear to be little reason for the existence of such a system. It is believed by the Embassy that the proposed plan would not make it possible to exercise the desired control. For these reasons the Embassy and the Special Representative of the Foreign Economic Administration suggest that no consideration be given at this time to further modification of the Decentralization Plan.

Respectfully yours,

For the Ambassador:

Julian Greenup

Counselor for Economic Affairs

6. Not printed.
7. As a result of these objections, which were said to have been the only serious ones advanced, the officials of the Foreign Economic Administration modified the proposed procedure “slightly” to the end of making unnecessary the recall of outstanding import recommendations and of assuring a ready detection of fraudulent alterations.