812.24/9–1445
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs ( Warren ) to the Acting Secretary of State
Mexico and Her Lend Lease Debts to the United States
As you will see by the attached memorandum of conversation,10 Ambassador Castillo Nájera on September 13 indicated that it had been his understanding, from conversations with President Roosevelt and Under Secretary Sumner Welles, that Mexico might not be required to repay her lend lease obligations to this country. As this comment was made by the Ambassador in a conversation with a junior officer of the Department,11 it may be that he was simply launching a trial balloon. On the other hand, I wonder if he said anything to you along these lines.12
- Memorandum by John W. Carrigan, Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs, of a conversation with Ambassador Castillo Nájera on September 13, not printed.↩
- J. W. Carrigan.↩
- Acting Secretary Dean Acheson wrote in the margin of this memo: “I was familiar with this at the time amp; never heard of such a suggestion. If you have not I think we ought to put it to rest.” Also in the margin, Assistant Secretary William L. Clayton wrote: “I never heard of it before,” and Emilio G. Collado, Director of the Office of Financial and Development Policy, wrote: “I never heard of this and was handling it at the time.”↩