Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The American Republics, Volume VIII

824.6354/12–1647

Memorandum by the Ambassador to Bolivia (Flack)²⁸

confidential

[Washington,] December 16, 1947.

I lunched with the Bolivian Ambassador today, and he told me informally that Mr. Jewett (RFC) informed him this morning of RFC’s offer of $0.88 per pound for Bolivian tin. Mr. Jewett informed him at the same time that RFC, being a purchasing agency, could only conduct this transaction on a commercial basis and it could not admit political considerations into the question of price.

The Bolivian Ambassador mentioned that he understood $1.00 a pound was being talked about in London and said that he assumed I knew that the Bolivians had asked $1.07 per pound. In the light of what he understood to be the possible London price, he felt that $0.88 was very low and that the producers would not accept it. He said he felt “very depressed” about the prospect of negotiations, and he went on to say that he had hoped that they would be concluded by December 31, 1947 in order not to further complicate Bolivia’s tin relationship with Argentina.

. . . . . . .

28. Addressed to Mr. Sheldon T. Mills, Chief of the Division of North and West Coast Affairs, and Mr. James Espy, Assistant Chief, and to Mr. Paul C. Daniels, Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs.