835.34/10–1546
The Ambassador in Argentina (Messersmith) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Clayton)
Dear Will: I have your letter of October 9 in which you refer to my letter of September 2833 with which I sent you a copy of our despatch on “Desire of the Argentine Navy to Acquire Four Small Vessels in the United States”.
You will recall that the Argentine Navy informed the Naval Attaché of this Embassy that the Argentine Navy must close this deal by November 3, 1946 or it will in all likelihood lose the vessels. As there is no indication that they desire them for improper purposes and other than the purposes indicated in the despatch, and as the armament which is on the vessels can be removed before being delivered, and delivered later after we have cleared up our situation, I hope very much that the appropriate decision has already been made in the Department and by the appropriate agencies of our Government to permit the sale of these four vessels to the Argentine Navy.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unless we are going to be able very shortly to collaborate more fully with the Argentine Navy and the Ministry of Aeronautics we are going to lose our position definitely to the British in both fields. There is no reason that I can see why these four vessels should not be sold now and I think it is of the utmost importance that we facilitate this sale. The Argentine Navy is so keen on this that there is hardly a day passes that they do not bring it to our attention.
With all good wishes [etc.]
- Neither printed.↩