810.20 Defense/7–1646
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
| Participants: | The British Ambassador |
| Mr. Hadow, Counselor of the British Embassy | |
| The Under Secretary of State | |
| Assistant Secretary, Mr. Braden |
The British Ambassador and Mr. Hadow called at the Ambassador’s request. Mr. Braden received them with me.
The Ambassador handed me the attached Aide-Mémoire77 and asked [Page 281] me to read it, which I did. In reply to the questions raised in the Aide-Mémoire I made the following points:
This Government has in mind several objectives in the Inter-American Military Cooperation Program. First, from the military point of view, a common action in the defense of the Hemisphere will be greatly facilitated if throughout the American Republics there should be standardized equipment and common types of military organization and training. It is obvious how this would facilitate combined action both from the supply and operational points of view in the event of any threat to the Hemisphere. Accordingly, the idea contained in the Aide-Mémoire that the cooperation extended to only a percentage of the force of each country was new to us. It did not seem that the purposes could be achieved if the forces of any of the Republics were equipped and trained partly in one way and partly in another.
Second, as the Aide-Mémoire pointed out, the presence of German military missions had proved both a danger and a handicap during the past war. Accordingly, another of the purposes of the program was to avoid these hazards in the future.
Third, it was desired to prevent an armament race either because of the external pressure of sellers of armaments or because of internal competition among the various countries. To this end, both under the Chapultepec arrangements and the contemplated treaty staff conversations and cooperation were envisaged for the purpose of keeping armaments to a minimum and to coordinate effort. Mr. Braden stressed our hope that armaments could be reduced rather than increased by this program.
So far as Argentina was concerned, I said that it was our purpose not to engage in discussions for supplying arms to Argentina until the political problems between us had been straightened out. At present it looked as though little progress is being made in this direction in the light of Peron’s retreat from the Mexico City agreements by placing them before the Congress for their action. Until this matter was clarified we saw little hope of making progress. Therefore we hoped that the gentlemen’s agreement would be continued in effect.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In response to Santo Domingo, I stated that we had declined to ship further armaments to that country and that we hoped that the British would take the same attitude. Mr. Hadow mentioned that Santo Domingo had obtained some arms from Brazil. We re-iterated our view that under present circumstances we thought arms from any sources were undesirable and we urged the British not to ship any.
Mr. Hadow inquired whether we had had any confirmation of the report that Argentina was attempting to get German equipment [Page 282] through the Soviet Union. Mr. Braden replied that a cable from Mr. Messersmith indicated that there was foundation for this report. Mr. Hadow stated that, if through Russian help Argentina were able to get equipment from the Skoda Company in Czechoslovakia or other German or Russian sources, the Argentines might become quite independent of help under the Inter-American Bill. Mr. Braden stated his intention of following this matter closely.