818.00/4–1748
Memorandum of Long Distance Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Central America and Panama Affairs (Newbegin)
Mr. Bernbaum1 was requested to inform General Somoza unofficially with respect to the Nicaraguan instructions to its delegation at Bogotá (Managua’s telegram no. 96, April 17) that the Embassy wished
- (1)
- to deny any possible implication that the Nicaraguan action in Costa Rica has United States support (the instructions stated that the Embassy had been informed of the Nicaraguan action),
- (2)
- to emphasize that the United States Government does not agree with the necessity or appropriateness of the action despite alleged appeal of the Costa Rican Government,
- (3)
- to state that this Government deplores this unilateral action as intervention inconsistent with well-established principles of the Inter-American System, and
- (4)
- to state that this Government feels that it (the Nicaraguan action) holds the possibility of a much more serious conflagration.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mr. Bernbaum was told that from Washington it appeared that by sending forces into Costa Rica, Nicaragua was inviting the very action to which it pretended to object and that the first thing that any new Costa Rican Government would feel bound to do would be to eliminate all Nicaraguan forces from Costa Rican territory. Accordingly, the action appeared particularly ill-advised and quite apart from other considerations not calculated to bring about the results desired by Somoza.
Mr. Bernbaum stated that he had received a telephone call from General Somoza shortly before our conversation and that Somoza reported that Nicaraguan troops had occupied three points in Costa Rica—Chiles, La Cruz, and Villa Quesada. One hundred men had been flown there to stop a revolutionary column consisting of some 500 men bound for Chontales. The column, which he claimed to be composed largely of Guatemalans and Venezuelans had been dispersed with 10 revolutionaries killed and an indeterminate number wounded, including a Guatemalan colonel who was leading the column. Mr. Bernbaum continued that according to General Somoza the Nicaraguan troops have strict instructions to confine their activities to stopping any attempt [Page 520] on the part of the rebels to penetrate Nicaraguan territory, that similarly they have been strictly instructed not to advance beyond the points mentioned. Somoza was reported to have stated with reference to the Nicaraguan message to Bogotá that he wanted the other American countries to mediate the matter and to obtain guarantees for him that the Nicaraguan border would remain inviolate and not be attacked. He said that with such guarantees he would withdraw his troops immediately. Mr. Bernbaum said he was assured that there were no Nicaraguan troops in other parts of Costa Rica and that Somoza had engaged in no air activity other than the transport of troops to the places mentioned. Mr. Bernbaum said he had expressed satisfaction to Somoza that strict instructions had been given to the Nicaraguan forces not to proceed further. Upon inquiry, Mr. Bernbaum estimated that there were perhaps 200 Nicaraguan troops in Chiles and another 200 in La Cruz, with approximately 2,000 on the border.
- Chargé in Nicaragua.↩