Office of the Historian

862.20235/4–2446

Memorandum by the Special Assistant (Spaeth) to the Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs (Braden)

confidential
[Washington,] April 24, 1946.

You will note that a copy of the attached despatch26 was sent to Ambassador Messersmith.

I think a reading will satisfy you that it is, to say the least, a misnomer to describe the memorandum as a “Balance Sheet”. To say that “more or less adequate action” has been taken against those Axis agents on our list of 122 who were not deported is certainly misleading. To state that “action (what action?) taken against Freude is open to suspicion of non-sincerity of purpose” is a gem of understatement.

I am afraid that if more memoranda of this kind are sent to Ambassador Messersmith he is going to have a very “unbalanced” picture of the anti-Axis program.

You will note that at several points in the memorandum … refers to lack of information in the Embassy’s possession and implies that the only source of our information is the Argentine Government itself. This would seem to bear out Mr. Klaus’27 view that the Embassy is either inadequately staffed or is not going about the intelligence job in the right way.

  1. No. 2483, April 10, from Buenos Aires, which was covering despatch to “Balance Sheet,” p. 241.↩
  2. Samuel Klaus, Assistant General Counsel, Office of Foreign Liquidation.↩