148. Memorandum of a Conversation, Buenos Aires, May 4, 19581
PARTICIPANTS
- Vice President Gómez
- Vice President Nixon
- Ambassador Beaulac
During the ride to the airport, Vice President Nixon suggested again that the Frondizi administration would have its greatest authority during the first few months of its life; that was the time, therefore, to do the difficult things. The Vice President referred to the “first ninety days” of the Franklin Roosevelt administration and recalled that although Roosevelt was reelected three times he never again had the authority he enjoyed during those ninety days.
Vice President Gómez asked the United States to help “push Argentina around the curve.”
He said no American president has had so much popularity in Latin America as Roosevelt and that one reason was that Roosevelt treated the Latin Americans as equals, at least on the surface. He noted that when a man is with his best girl he doesn’t notice whether he is hungry or not.
Vice President Gómez referred to the political situation in Argentina following the 1930 revolution. He said all politicians were corrupted by the big companies.
I asked him whether he meant foreign companies or domestic companies. He said both. I asked him whether he thought Argentine politicians were more corrupt than the politicians of other countries. He said he did not know because he did not know other countries.
He referred to the CADE case, and said that the time had come now to “revive the dead,” meaning to rehabilitate CADE.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 033.1100–NI/5–658. Confidential. Drafted by Beaulac. Transmitted to the Department of State in despatch 1693 from Buenos Aires, May 6.↩