711.56352/3–2753: Telegram
No. 888
The Chargé in Spain (Jones) to the Department
of State1
749. USNEG—Noforn. Embtel 734, March 18.2 Foreign Minister has replied to my note and personal letter of March 16 in formal note received this morning but dated March 26. Its text in English translation follows:
[Page 1924]“Number 163 Secret Security Information:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 627 of March 16 and of your letter of the same date,3 as well as of the attached counterdraft of a mutual defense agreement,4 which your government suggests to be called in the future ‘Military Facilities Agreement’ and which might also be called ‘Military Agreement’, which we would consider to be more in consonance with its character and content.
I note that Ambassador MacVeagh transmitted to the United States Government, shortly after last January 14, the Spanish draft of the Mutual Defense Agreement which General Vigon handed to General Kissner last December 23,5 and I thank you for the information concerning the recommendations made by the Ambassador that a formula be found to bring the Spanish and American points of view as close to each other as possible. I take pleasure in advising you that the counterdraft accompanying your note No. 627 was at once transmitted to the competent authorities with the recommendation that they study it with all possible urgency.
In your letter of the same date you made certain observations directly related to the subject of your note under reference and, esteeming the problem they raise to be of the greatest gravity and transcendence, I consider it necessary to refer to it without further delay.
You say that ‘should it become impossible to obligate before the end of the current fiscal year some or all of the $125 million which were appropriated for agreed assistance programs, this may well have the effect that new funds for aid to Spain in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1954, which would otherwise be required and which could be justified to the Congress, would be correspondingly reduced’. And as a conclusion you point out that ‘as time passes without completion all the agreements it will prove increasingly difficult to provide for new funds in the next fiscal year’.
I consider that these statements are of such gravity that they can have considerable weight upon the execution of the proposed agreement.
In effect, I feel obliged to recall at this point that the $125 million voted by the US Congress for economic assistance to Spain in the Law of Appropriations for Mutual Security approved on October 31, 1951 and its later amendment of 1952, were passed without being subject to conditions or reserves related to the conclusion of any defense agreement or Military Facilities Agreement, but only [Page 1925] to the signature of the agreements called ‘Mutual Assistance’ which, as you know, Spain has already negotiated and is ready to sign at any moment.
It was precisely the former American administration which conditioned the granting of assistance upon the conclusion of a military agreement, thereby making impossible the immediate granting of the aid and bringing about a delay, inherent in the importance and seriousness of the matter, in which the Spanish Government bears no responsibility and has not participated.
In the second place, a cause of delay, in which the Spanish Government is likewise not involved, has been the slowness of the study given the counterdrafts by the previous American administration, as Ambassador MacVeagh recognized in his letter of October 6 [7], 1952,6 in which he told me textually: ‘The long delay has not been due to any desire on the part of Washington to delay a decision but only to the necessity of coordinating the points of view of the many interested governmental agencies’.
Finally, the complications which arise from the change of the American administration have been the third delaying factor in the negotiations, as you yourself set forth in note number 627, in saying that the delay in the reply was due to the necessity for the Departments of the government concerned to study the problem at a time when a new administration was assuming office.
It would be a very serious matter if these delays, which are not attributable to the Spanish Government, together with the reflection which the study of such an important matter naturally requires, should bring about reduction or delays in the granting of the funds necessary for the defense of this country, because this would weaken, either for reasons of amount or opportunity, the efficacy of the measures set forth in the military agreements themselves. This is precisely the concern which inspired the text of one of the most essential paragraphs of the Spanish counterdraft of December 23, 1952; I refer to the one which foresaw the necessary and desirable parallelism between the development and use of the bases and the strengthening and perfecting of the defensive means of the (Spanish) Armed Forces.
Believing that you will appreciate the importance of these observations, I beg you to transmit them to your government, given the most serious responsibility which failure to take into account the necessary insurance would carry with it is such a serious matter.
I take the opportunity to reiterate to you etc. Signed Alberto Martin Artajo”.
[Page 1926]- Repeated to London and Paris. In lieu of a signature, the words “message unsigned” appear on the source text.↩
- Telegram 734 reported that the note and letter, Documents 885 and 886, and the Draft Military Facilities Agreement had been delivered to the Spanish on Mar. 17. (711.56352/3–1853)↩
- See footnote 2 above.↩
- See footnote 1, Document 885.↩
- See Document 876.↩
- Document 871.↩
- In telegram 756 from Madrid, Mar. 31, Jones emphasized that the Spanish had taken the personal letter of Mar. 16 as a very serious affront which placed the negotiations in jeopardy. He recommended that he be authorized to address a conciliatory explanatory note to the Spanish in reply. (711.56352/3–3153)↩
- The Spanish text was transmitted in despatch 774 from Madrid, Mar. 27. (711.56352/3–2753)↩