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

812.24/1–2047

The Ambassador in Mexico (Thurston) to the Secretary of State

confidential
No. 2551

Mexico, January 20, 1947.

Subject: Lend Lease Indebtedness of Mexican Government

Sir: Supplementing despatch no. 2542 dated January 17, 1947,² on the subject noted, and for purposes of official record, there is transcribed below the text of a personal letter addressed by me on January 10 to Guy W. Ray, Esquire, Chief, Division of Mexican Affairs:

Mexico, D. F., January 10, 1947.

“Confidential

My dear Guy:

This will answer your letter of December 28, 1946² and Ellis Briggs’ letter of December 18, 1946,³ and will supplement my telephone call on the morning of January 8, 1947—all of which concern the Department’s desire that I obtain a reply from the Mexican Government to the Department’s several Notes to the Mexican Embassy in Washington regarding Mexico’s Lend Lease indebtedness to the United States.

I took up this topic in an interview last night with Señor Jaime Torres Bodet, the newly-appointed Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs, Señor Torres Bodet did not let me finish my presentation of the subject before interrupting me to say that his Government felt that Mexico’s war sacrifices in the Philippines, at sea, and through the emigration of its braceros⁴ placed the inescapable obligation on the Mexican Government to obtain adequate recompense—and that it was the position of the Mexican Government, which found itself excluded from the peace arrangements for Italy⁵ and threatened with similar exclusion as regards Germany,⁶ to defend its position as strongly as possible and that in this effort it felt that it should make its Lend Lease settlement with the United States contingent upon adjustment of its claims against Italy and Germany. With respect to the braceros, he said that while it was true that some of them brought small savings back to Mexico, these in the aggregate were not important and did not offset the loss to Mexico’s industry and agriculture resulting from their absence from the country in crucial years. He then said that perhaps I did not know that President Roosevelt had stated, when the Lend Lease arrangements were being made, that Mexico would not be expected to make any outlay in connection with those arrangements.⁷

When Señor Torres Bodet had concluded these remarks, I stated to him that if he would permit me to do so, I would say that I felt that the position he had outlined was not entirely defensible and that I regretted that he had felt it necessary to link Mexico’s general claims against the Axis powers with her concrete contractual obligations with the United States under the Lend Lease Agreement.⁸ I stated that I was certain that the sacrifices made by Mexico as a loyal and active participant in the War against the Axis were fully recognized in the United States, and that they had created a most sympathetic atmosphere in that country which would be reflected when negotiations for a settlement of Mexico’s Lend Lease obligations were held. I said that with respect to President Roosevelt, we had no record of any such commitment on his part nor could we confirm it from those who were associated with him, and that furthermore it seemed to me unlikely that in the face of such a commitment Mexico would have been called upon to sign a formal, agreement on Lend Lease requiring payments. I added that regardless of what I had just said, all that I requested him to do was to address a Note to me in response to the numerous Notes sent by the State Department to the Mexican Embassy in Washington on this subject, in which he would say merely that the Mexican Government is ready to negotiate a settlement of its Lend Lease indebtedness. He requested me to give him the dates of the Notes to which I had alluded, and from the two or three documents I had in my possession when speaking to him, I cited those dated March 27, 1945, June 1, 1945, August 30, 1945, and October 1, 1946.⁹ I further pointed out that oral statements of intention to negotiate a settlement had already been made to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States¹⁰ during his recent visit to Mexico, and that a similar and equally definite statement had been incorporated in the memorandum written by the Mexican Secretary of Finance, Licenciado Ramón Beteta, which Señor Torres Bodet had handed to me on December 16.¹¹ The Note that I requested consequently would constitute no new decision on policy but merely a formal ratification thereof. In conclusion, I remarked that the formal affirmation of the readiness of the Mexican Government to negotiate a settlement of its Lend Lease indebtedness would not preclude the presentation and discussion of the general and particular views he had expressed at the beginning of our conversation. I recommended that these views be omitted from the Note he might send me in the sense tentatively agreed upon, and that if he desired to present them to me in writing he do so in a separate communication—which would not, however, limit or qualify the Note. I was confident, I said, that Mexico’s views would be taken into full account and that I felt that we might possibly be able, in the negotiations following the receipt of the Note I had requested, to work out a plan whereunder some portion of the Lend Lease indebtedness could be discharged without drawing against Mexico’s foreign exchange reserves through the transfer to us of lands on which we might build diplomatic or consular premises.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs appeared to be impressed by these arguments and while I was speaking, drafted a brief Note along the lines I had indicated. He stated that he would prepare this Note and if authorized to do so by the President and his Cabinet colleagues he would forward it to me within the near future.

Cordially and sincerely yours,
(signed) Walter Thurston”

Respectfully yours,

Walter Thurston

2. Not printed.
2. Not printed.
3. Not printed; Mr. Briggs was Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs.
4. Day laborers.
5. For the Mexican point of view on the draft peace treaty with Italy, see memorandum submitted by the Mexican Delegation before the Paris Peace Conference, August 30, 1946, Department of State publication No. 2868, Paris Peace Conference, 1946: Selected Documents, p. 335. See also Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. iv, pp. 815–816, 827–828, 830–831.
6. For documentation on the Moscow session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, March 10–April 24, 1947, see vol. ii, pp. 139 ff.
7. See letter from Assistant Secretary of State Braden to the Mexican Ambassador, July 2, 1946, Foreign Relations, 1946 vol. xi, p. 985.
8. For United States-Mexican lend-lease agreements of March 27, 1942, and March 18, 1943, see ibid., 1942, vol. vi, p. 485, and ibid., 1943, vol. vi, p. 397.
9. The Department’s notes of March 27, June 1, and August 30, 1945, requesting reimbursement, not printed; for note of October 1, 1946, see ibid., 1946, vol. xi, p. 985.
10. John W. Snyder.
11. Not printed, but see Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. xi, p. 987, footnote 19.