Office of the Historian

716.5 MSP/11–953

Memorandum by the Acting Special Assistant to the Secretary for Mutual Security Affairs (Nolting) to the Director of the Office of Military Assistance, Department of Defense (Stewart)1

confidential
[Washington,] November 9, 1953.

Subject:

  • El Salvador Case No. 7

I refer to a memorandum of July 14, 1953 which transmitted a request from the Salvadoran Government for certain military equipment (El Salvador Case No. 7) and to a subsequent memorandum of July 27, 1953 which modified this request.2

The Salvadoran Government desires to have the equipment covered by this request for a celebration which is to take place in El Salvador on December 14, 1953. While this is the stated reason for desiring the equipment, there is reason to believe that El Salvador desires to have the equipment on this particular occasion because it will provide an opportunity to make a display of strength both for domestic reasons and to give pause to neighboring communist-influenced Guatemala which has been exerting somewhat continuous pressure against El Salvador. It is apparently for this reason that the Department of State has been approached several times in the last few months by the Salvadoran Ambassador inquiring as to the status of the request and stressing the importance which his Government attaches to it. For this same reason, I understand that this matter has been discussed informally between officers of the Departments of State and Defense on several occasions.

This Department considers it highly desirable to comply with the request of the Salvadoran Government for prompt delivery which will assist that Government to maintain its anti-Communist position, which is a factor of considerable weight in the stability of Central America.

[Page 1013]

I would like to urge that everything possible be done to insure that this equipment may arrive in El Salvador on time, and would appreciate anything you may be able to do toward that end.3

Frederick E. Nolting, Jr.
  1. Brig. Gen. George C. Stewart. This memorandum was drafted by Robert M. Sayre of the Office of Regional American Affairs.↩
  2. Regarding these memoranda, see footnotes 9 and 11, supra.↩
  3. Department of State records indicate that delivery of the equipment purchased by El Salvador under Case No. 7 took place in early December 1953.↩