200. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of State (Hoover) to the Secretary of State1
Before Mr. Holland left on his extended tour of South America with Mr. Waugh of the Eximbank, he talked with me on the substance of the two attached memorandums regarding economic and military aid to Argentina.2 The memorandums were not received in my office until after Mr. Holland had departed.
I advised Mr. Holland that I did not believe we should be in the position of giving the Argentines a blank check on economic aid as might be construed from conclusions 1, 2, and 3 of his memorandum of November 17. Furthermore, I did not believe that we should adopt a basic policy of aid to Argentina as outlined in his Recommendation 1.a. until all the facts were at our disposal.
I suggested, therefore, that while Mr. Holland should adopt a sympathetic attitude toward the Argentine Government during his meetings with them, his commitments should be restricted to inviting them to a fact-finding conference at which all of the circumstances might be reviewed. This conference should preferably take place in Washington after the Argentines had had an opportunity to assess their position and gather all the facts regarding their economic predicament.
With regard to the military aid, it was my suggestion that the Defense Department should send someone to Buenos Aires to meet with the Argentine military authorities, this to coincide with the visit of Mr. Holland and Mr. Waugh. I reviewed this situation with Gordon Gray and suggested he might want to consider having General Erskine3 undertake this mission. Mr. Gray was cooperative and said they would take it under immediate advisement in the Defense Department.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 835.00–TA/11–2455. Confidential.↩
- See Document 198 and supra. No memorandum of Holland’s conversation with Hoover has been found in Department of State files.↩
- General Graves B. Erskine, USMC (ret.), Director of the Office of Special Operations, Department of Defense.↩