800.503110/5–1948
The Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs ( Daniels ) to the Ambassador in Uruguay ( Briggs )
Dear Ellis: I am in general agreement with the line of thought set forth in your confidential letter of May 19, 19481 regarding our policy towards capital investment in the other American republics.
With reference specifically to the second paragraph of your letter, I can state quite categorically that we are not considering dropping or relaxing our efforts to seek more favorable treatment for private enterprise capital. Quite the contrary, one of the major debates at the Bogota conference2 was on this specific issue. It will interest you to know that the attitude of the Uruguayan Delegation in this respect was most understanding and helpful. If you have occasion to run into Dr. Ariosto D. Gonzalez of the Uruguayan Delegation (who is a swell guy), he can give you a very interesting description of that debate. One of the most satisfactory features of the economic agreement of [Page 742] Bogotá was the chapter on private investments. The only trouble with that agreement is that too darn many reservations were attached.
So far as loans from the International Bank and from the Eximbank are concerned, there will undoubtedly be a continuation of our existing policies, and very likely on an expanded scale. It is the intention and hope of everybody here, however that all such credits will be conducive either directly or indirectly to a still greater flow of private investment capital. … All that I have set forth above, however, is an accurate reflection of current official thinking not only in the State Department, but in other agencies here as well....
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sincerely yours,
- In this letter, not printed, Ambassador Briggs stressed the prime importance of United States efforts seeking more favorable treatment for private enterprise capital and for the use of private capital in achieving the economic development of Latin America (00.503110/5–1948).↩
- For documentation on the Ninth International Conference of American States, at Bogotá, Colombia, March 30–May 2, 1948, see pp. 1 ff. For provisions of the Economic Agreement of Bogotá on private investments see the report of the American Delegation on the Conference, Department of State publication 3263, p. 207.↩