Office of the Historian

735.21/5–351

The First Secretary of Embassy in Argentina (Pool) to the Secretary of State

restricted
Buenos Aires, May 3, 1951.

No. 1706

Subject: Foreign Affairs Section of Perón’s1 State of the Nation Speech2

There is transmitted herewith a translation3 of the section of President Perón’s State of the Nation speech dealing with foreign relations.

[Here follows a paragraph concerning the general theme of this section of the speech.]

Perón went on to add that Argentina does not favor fighting in far away lands, but will defend her own frontiers to the death. Her policy is oriented on the basis of collaboration with the American States in a spirit of solidarity. But solidarity is a two-way street, and the Americas should begin by remembering that Argentina has some unredeemed territory (Falkland Islands) still in the hands of a non-American power,4 and they should show some solidarity with her by helping her get it back.5 (In another section of the speech Perón stated that for the first time the truth about the Falklands and “Argentine sovereignty over the Antarctic” was being taught in the schools.)

[Page 1720]

Foreign relations formed a very small part of the speech, by far the greater part of it being devoted to the economic blessings of justicialism.

John C. Pool
  1. President Juan Domingo Perón of Argentina.↩
  2. The text of the speech, given before the Argentine Congress on May 1, was transmitted to the Department of State with despatch 1700, May 2 (735.2/5–251).↩
  3. Not printed.↩
  4. The Falkland Islands were administered by the United Kingdom.↩

  5. In the Embassy’s informal translation, the part of the speech under reference reads as follows:

    • “On the other hand, Argentine solidarity with the American countries requires the same solidarity of all those countries with the Argentine Republic; it is to that solidarity that the Argentine representative in every inter-American conference has appealed in order to bring to bear, with the force of all America, Argentina’s right to have the Falkland Islands returned to it, since they unquestionably form part of the frontiers of the Republic, as does the portion of the Antarctic which belongs to it.”

    At a press conference on May 2, Secretary of State Acheson refused to comment on Perón’s statement. Despatch 1719, from Buenos Aires, May 4 reported that an article of that date in the Argentine newspaper La Epoca commented: “In doing this, he, probably without intending to, showed his complete complicity with the power which is actually in possession of that Argentine territory taken from it by force.” (702.022/5–451) Documentation concerning U.S. relations with Argentina may be found in vol. ii, pp. 1079 ff.

    ↩