Office of the Historian

344. Memorandum of a Conversation, Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, October 24, 19601

Mexico, October 24, 1960

SUBJECT

  • Meeting of the President with the President of Mexico at Ciudad Acuña, October 24, 1960
[Page 903]

PARTICIPANTS

  • United States
    • The President
    • The Secretary of State
    • Ambassador Hill
    • Mr. Hagerty
    • Assistance Secretary Mann
    • Brig. Gen. Howard McC. Snyder
    • General Patrick Hurley
    • Mr. W. Alton Jones
    • Colonel Robert Schulz
    • Colonel Vernon Walters
    • Melville E. Osborne
    • Robert Montgomery
  • Mexico
    • The President
    • The Foreign Minister
    • Federico Mariscal
    • Ambassador Carrillo Flores
    • Humberto Romero
    • Joaquin Bernal
    • Justo Sierra
    • Gen. José Gomez Huerta

The President expressed his satisfaction with steps being taken to complete the agreement between the United States and Mexico to permit rapid construction of Amistad Dam. In recognition of the completion of Anzalduas Dam, the President commented that it might be desirable to hold appropriate inauguration ceremonies in the reasonably near future.

The President made gifts to the Mexican President of a desk clock, an album of photographs of the Mexican President’s visit to the United States in October 1959, and a silver-framed and autographed photograph of himself. He distributed to the other members of the Mexican party specially made medallions commemorating the occasion. The Mexican President presented silver-framed photographs of himself to the President and to members of the President’s party. He also presented to the President a silver model of the bell of Dolores Hidalgo, the symbol of Mexico’s independence. The President noted its similarity with the Liberty Bell of Philadelphia and the similarity of the traditions of liberty in the two countries.2

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 711.11–EI/10–2460. Confidential. Drafted by Osborne and approved by the White House on November 3.↩
  2. In telegram 229 to Mexico City, October 22, the Department transmitted the text of a joint communiqué issued following the meeting of the two Presidents at Ciudad Acuña. (Ibid., 711.11–EI/10–2060) For text of the joint communiqué, see Department of State Bulletin, December 5, 1960, p. 851.↩