810.7962/4–2247
The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of War (Patterson)
My Dear Mr. Secretary: Reference is made to your letter of November 1, 1946,22 enclosing recommendations of the District Engineer, United States Engineer Office, Miami, Florida, for the disposition of certain airports constructed or improved under the Airport Development Program.
In its reply of February 21, 1947, this Department interposed no objection to the recommended plan for the disposal of Puerto Barrios and La Aurora Airports at Puerto Barrios and Guatemala City, Guatemala, respectively. The Department now wishes to point out, however, that objection must be raised to such portion of the recommended plan for the disposal of these Airport Development Program airfields in Guatemala as may be found to conflict with the following paragraph of a note, No. 337, which the United States Legation at Guatemala City addressed to the Guatemalan Government on November 16, 1942:23
“4. All of the works carried out on Guatemalan territory on the initiative and at the cost of the Government of the United States of America, pursuant to the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement attached hereto, shall, upon the termination of that agreement, become the exclusive property of the Government of Guatemala, with the exception of the organic armament and equipment of the United States forces, the clothing of the troops, the manual instruments, and everything that constitutes the equipment of such forces.”
The foregoing note is an integral part of this Government’s Lend-Lease Agreement with Guatemala.24
Sincerely yours,
Assistant Secretary
- Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. xi, p. 105.↩
- Ibid., 1942, vol. vi, p. 443.↩
- The Secretary of War replied in a memorandum of May 29 that the War Department would abide by the objections raised by the Department of State in the above letter (810.7962/5–2947).↩