715.1715/10–1244
The Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs (Armour) to the Ambassador in Nicaragua (Stewart)
Dear Mr. Ambassador: We have been very much interested and encouraged to receive your airgram A–428 of October 12, 1944, 4 p.m., and to know that President Somoza considers the atmosphere propitious to an attempt to settle the boundary dispute. We have [Page 224] not had any reply from our telegram to Honduras on this subject,24 but hope that the same favorable disposition will exist there.
In your further conversations with President Somoza on this subject, you might wish to point out to him that it would of course be completely impossible to reach a settlement on the basis set forth in your airgram, following the divide north of the Cocos River. This is the position adopted by the Nicaraguan Congress a number of years ago which was wholly unsatisfactory to Honduras. It is our hope that this is simply part of President Somoza’s tactics—to adopt the last position of his Government, even though it was only of the legislative branch and was less in accordance with Honduras’ desires than the terms arranged by the executive branch. It is quite proper of him to adopt this position in the initial stages and we hope that it is simply a bargaining position, for obviously no settlement could be reached with Honduras along these lines.
In prevision of the possibility that President Somoza might indeed go to Tegucigalpa to have a talk with President Carías on this subject, we should like to emphasize that such a meeting should not be for the purpose of discussing a solution of the boundary, at least ostensibly. It would be much better to give some other reason to the public. For example, the two Presidents might meet at the point where the Inter-American Highway crosses their frontier in celebration of the reopening of traffic at the end of the rainy season, or, half a dozen pretexts might easily be found.
We are all deeply interested in any favorable developments which might conduce to a settlement of this dispute and wish you every success in your further conversations on the subject with President Somoza.
Very sincerely yours,