Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The American Republics, Volume IX

740.35112 RP/1–1345

The Chargé in Argentina (Reed) to the Secretary of State

No. 17053

Buenos Aires, January 13, 1945.
[Received January 23.]

Sir: With reference to the Embassy’s Despatch No. 16999 of January 5, 1945⁷⁶ I have the honor to transmit a memorandum of a conversation⁷⁶ held by Embassy officers with Luis Fiore, Chairman of the Argentine Government Committee for the Control of Axis Firms.

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It is significant to note that in the attached memorandum that Mr. Fiore for the first time has implied that the members of his Committee and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce are not completely in accord with his intervention program. It is also highly significant that in the last four or five conversations Mr. Fiore has had with Embassy officers over a period of one month he has not again referred to any question of expropriation, vesting or liquidation of Axis firms. He seems to feel that his program of appointing Government Delegate Managers in the intervened firms is tantamount to a sufficient control of Axis firms so as to constitute a compliance with Resolution V of the Rio Convention.⁷⁷

As stated heretofore in the despatches transmitting memoranda of these conversations, the Government Delegate Managers to the intervened firms require that all business transactions with other organizations must be acquiesced in and authorized by these Delegate Managers. Although there is joint government management of some firms these firms still continue their usual business activities. It is therefore obvious that the few Axis firms already intervened in Argentina are continuing their normal business transactions.

Respectfully yours,

For the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim:

David C. Berger

First Secretary of Embassy

76. Not printed.
76. Not printed.
77. Resolution V was concerned with the severance of commercial and financial ties between the American Republics and Axis Nations. For text, see Pan American Union, Congress and Conference Series No. 36: Report on the Third Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics, Rio de Janeiro, January 15–28, 1942 (Washington, 1942), p. 38. For documentation on this Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, pp. 6 ff.