Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume V, Microfiche Supplement, American Republics

GT–22. Memorandum of Conversation by the Officer in Charge of Guatemalan Affairs (Gorrell)¹

Washington, September 28, 1959

SUBJECT

• Visit of Guatemalan Foreign Minister

PARTICIPANTS

• His Excellency Lic. Jesus Victor Unda Murillo, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala;
• His Excellency Col. Arturo Ramirez Pinto, Ambassador of Guatemala; Assistant Secretary R. R. Rubottom, Jr.;
• Mr. Juan L. Correll, Officer in Charge, Guatemala Affairs.

Foreign Minister Unda Murillo said he had been requested by President Ydígoras to transmit through Mr. Rubottom, the President’s warm salutations to President and Mrs. Eisenhower. The Minister also asked that Mr. Rubottom communicate his own personal salutations to Secretary Herter.

President Ydígoras, the Minister said, had also asked him to inquire of Mr. Rubottom the proper channels for extending an invitation to Governor Muñoz Marin of Puerto Rico to visit Guatemala, and the most effective way of doing so. Mr. Rubottom said he would secure this information and transmit it through Ambassador Ramirez Pinto.

The Minister stated that Guatemala is suffering from the drop in coffee prices, which has created financial problem that prevent its dynamic President from doing all the things he would like to do. He expressed satisfaction at the efforts that have been made to stabilize the coffee situation. He mentioned in passing that Guatemala would like to become a sugar exporting nation but understands the difficulties involved in trying to have a quota assigned to it at the present time.

Mr. Rubottom expressed interest in hearing the Minister’s views on the political situation in Guatemala. The Minister stressed the tension attendant on the throwing of bombs, some of which, he said, have been tossed by the extreme Leftist PR, others by the extreme Rightist MDN, in efforts to create confusion. Some, he said, have hoped to force Ydígoras to set up a dictatorship but the President has refused to do so because he is determined to upload democracy. However, the Minister continued, by their tactics the PR and MDN have unwittingly become tools of an international plot being stage-managed by Betancourt of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba, in the interest of securing the return of Arévalo to the head of the Guatemala Government. Their purpose, the Minister stated, is to set up a network of Governments similar to their own, and Betancourt is the creature of Arévalo, who is serving as close advisor to him, as well as close friend. If elections were to be held next year in Guatemala, the Minister added, Arévalo would be elected by an overwhelming majority, with dire results for the country and great embarrassment for the United States.

The Minister expressed indignation at the speech given in the UNGA by the Cuban Foreign Minister, Roa, especially at his having coupled Guatemala with Hungary and Tibet.² He said he had felt that the Guatemalan Foreign Office could not reply to these remarks, but that the task had been undertaken by the Guatemalan Consul General in New York, who had made a strong reply, making it clear there had been no foreign intervention in Guatemala’s Liberation.

Stating that he was doing so at the Secretary’s request, Mr. Rubottom told the Minister that in the Camp David conversations the “dead line” for settlement of the Berlin issue had been dropped and the way apparently opened for a Summit meeting.

1. Source: Department of State, ARA/OAP Files, Lot 63 D 146, “Interdepartmental Memoranda: Guatemala, 1959.” Official Use Only. The source text is an unsigned carbon copy.
2. The referenced speech was delivered on September 24, 1959; for text, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Fourteenth Session, Plenary Meetings (A/PV.806), p. 145.