GT–21. Editorial Note
In reply to a note of September 22, 1959, from Guatemalan Ambassador Ramírez, the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Thomas C. Mann, wrote on October 1 that the Guatemalan request for a 10,000 ton quota for sugar export to the United States in 1960 could not be granted under existing law. (411.146/9–2259) During a conversation on October 23, José Luis Arenas, a friend of President Ydígoras, showed Mann a letter of October 19 in which Ydígoras thanked Arenas for information that Mann intended to help obtain an annual quota of up to one million tons of sugar for Guatemala. (Attachment to memorandum of conversation of October 23; 814.10/10–2359) Mann called Arenas’ attention to the fact that there had been no mention of obtaining this quota for Guatemala. He reiterated his previous [Typeset Page 700] statements to Arenas and the Ambassador that no action could be taken until Congress passed new legislation. (Ibid.)