Office of the Historian

714.56/9–552

Edward W. Clark of the Office of Middle American Affairs to the First Secretary of the Embassy in Guatemala (Krieg)

confidential
official–informal
[Washington,] September 5, 1952.

Dear Bill: Reference is made to your letter of August 29, 1952,1 to Ernie Siracusa with which you forwarded a memorandum prepared by Colonel Martin,2 the new Air Attaché, in which the latter set forth his views regarding the export of F–51 fighter planes to Guatemala. I am glad to see that Colonel Martin’s views correspond closely with those the Department has held over the past several years. As you are aware, the Guatemalans have been endeavoring to obtain fighter planes for a number of years and upon each occasion we were able successfully to block their efforts on technical grounds without having to do so on grounds of political considerations. The technical grounds were, as I recall them, that the United States Government could not sell military equipment to Guatemala under the terms of the MDA3 as [Page 1038] the Rio Treaty4 was not in effect between the United States and Guatemala and secondly that F–51 planes were being used in Korea and were simply not available for sale to other governments.

In the present case it is again our intention to block the Guatemalan effort, but we desire to do so again on technical grounds. From Ernie Siracusa’s conversation with Mr. Martin5 in the Munitions Division (see memorandum of conversation dated August 19, 1952,6 copy of which was sent to the Embassy), it would appear that the Munitions Division can find a number of legitimate technical ways to stall along on its consideration of the application for an export license and eventually to find technical grounds to turn it down. Thus we will not be faced, I hope, with the problem of having to decide this question on general political grounds.

With regard to the last paragraph of Colonel Martin’s memorandum, I might say that in conversations which we had in the Pentagon two years ago with Colonel Giron,7 then head of the Guatemalan Air Force, when he was here in Washington endeavoring to obtain fighter planes, the angle about prohibitive cost and upkeep of the aircraft was stressed and restressed by the Air Force people to Colonel Giron. It was obvious at the time that their arguments made no impression on Colonel Giron whatever and his attitude was that money was no object. He was bound and determined to purchase as many F–51 ‘s as he could get without regard to cost.

In connection with this whole problem of Guatemala’s efforts to obtain fighter craft it has been pleasing here to note from recent telegrams8 exchanged between the Department and our Embassy in London that the British Government is not inclined to sell planes to Guatemala. These telegrams have been repeated to Guatemala for your information so you are aware of this aspect of the matter.

We will keep you further posted on this subject and should it be necessary formally to ask the Embassy’s opinion we shall do so. As I have said previously, however, we hope that MID will be able to handle the whole thing on technical grounds.9

Sincerely yours,

Edward W. Clark
  1. Not found in Department of State files.↩
  2. Col. Vernon P. Martin.↩
  3. Apparent reference to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (Public Law 329), approved Oct. 6, 1949; for text, see 63 Stat. 714.↩
  4. For text of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), opened for signature at Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 2, 1947, and entered into force for the United States, Dec. 3, 1948, see TIAS No. 1838, or 62 Stat. (pt. 2) 1681.↩
  5. Charles D. Martin, Munitions Division, Office of Security and Consular Affairs.↩
  6. In the referenced memorandum of telephone conversation by Mr. Siracusa, not printed, Mr. Martin was noted to have stated that export licenses for the sale abroad of aircraft could be denied if the seller was unable to provide proper serial numbers, or if it was determined that the aircraft in question had been sold with a “scrap warranty”. (714.5622/8–1952)↩
  7. Col. Felipe Antonio Giron, Chief, Guatemalan Air Force.↩
  8. Not identified.↩
  9. Department of State files indicate that no F–51 fighter planes were sold to the Arbenz government.↩