812.00B/1–1246
The Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith) to the Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs (Carrigan)
[Received January 17.]
Dear Carrigan: I wish to refer to my letter of January 10, 1946,6 with which I sent you a clipping from La Voz de Mexico of the issue of January 9, in paragraph (7) of which the Communist party and this paper state that the Government of the United States should be petitioned that I be removed and replaced by a proven partisan of democracy and of the Good Neighbor policy, as there exist accusations against me to the effect that I am working with the Sinarquists and that these accusations are based on “confessions” of Sinarquists.
I also wish to refer to a Communist meeting which took place in Mexico City on the evening of December 21, during which meeting a Communist speaker made an attack against the United States and against me, stating that I should be removed, etc.
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I am bringing all the foregoing together because it is an indication of the definite Moscow and Communist interest in attacking us here in [Page 971] Mexico, and of course one of the most natural ways is to attack me. There is a good deal of resentment here in Mexico over these Communist attacks on me, and over the statements which Lombardo has made in private against me but has so far not dared to make regarding me in public. The extreme Communist interest in holding meetings recently in which we are always attacked, and the English in the second place, and in which I am attacked, is significant because it is an indication of the interest which Soviet Russia has in sowing discord in Mexico and in Latin America, and in developing resentment against us. We can’t escape the fact that Soviet Russia does not like inter-American collaboration and they want to break up this collaboration between Mexico and the United States, for they consider Mexico a key country in this whole American picture.
I think I should tell you that there is a great deal of resentment here, even among people who are not particularly my personal friends, over these attacks and this mention of my being recalled. …
… I think the feeling is put in the most succinct form in a statement of the President of Mexico to a close friend the other day when they were undoubtedly discussing these attacks on me by Communists and Lombardo, and when the President said “I know the history of my country and I know the actuation of American Ambassadors here and I know the actuation of the present Ambassador, and I am convinced that Mexico has never had a more sincere friend in the American Embassy, or a person more understanding of every phase of Mexico’s life”. …7
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With all good wishes,
Cordially and faithfully yours,
- Not printed.↩
- Ambassador Messersmith reported in Despatch 28,192, January 29, that an article planned for publication on January 26 by La Voz de Mexico, the Communist newspaper in Mexico City, attacking him and the American Embassy had not been published, because, according to the editor, he had received a letter from the Mexican Ministry of Gobernación warning him not to publish any articles of criticism against any diplomatic mission or Chiefs of Mission in Mexico (812.00/1–2946).↩