Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–11, Part 1, Documents on Mexico; Central America; and the Caribbean, 1973–1976

28. Telegram 22865 From the Department of State to All American Republic Diplomatic Posts¹

Washington, January 31, 1975, 1834Z.

22865. Subject: Postponement of Buenos Aires MFM. From Acting Assistant Secretary Bowdler.

The following may be useful background for you in light of the postponement of the Buenos Aires MFM:

1) We are, of course, disappointed at this latest turn of events. As we said in our public statement, we fail to understand why the MFM dialogue with the Secretary, one of the purposes of which was to examine areas of conflict, should have been interrupted by the few undesirable provisions of the Trade Act—provisions which the President and the Secretary had already indicated needed to be reconsidered.

2) Nevertheless, we do not intend to let the postponement of the Buenos Aires meeting deter us from taking those actions with regard to our policies and programs in Latin America that need to be taken. We have been working on a number of initiatives in the expectation that they would coalesce in time for the BA meeting. These presumably were worth doing on their merits and we will continue to pursue them on that basis, although we may have to revise the timing and form of presentation.

3) The Argentine announcement on postponement of the BA MFM leaves future of the dialogue in some doubt. The initiative for resuming it is clearly in the Latin America’s court. The Latin Americans may prefer to fold the informal MFM format into the OAS through appropriate restructuring. The April meeting of the OASGA offers the opportunity to explore this possibility. In the meantime we will concentrate on bilateral and sub-regional opportunities for building the new relationship we seek. In the end this relationship may be easier to achieve via this route than through the collective approach where “Latin American solidarity” places a premium on following the lowest-common-denominator position taken by any one of the twenty-four other participants.

4) For our part, as the Secretary made clear in his January 28 news conference, strengthened hemisphere relations is one of the cardinal aspects of our foreign policy. The Secretary plans to travel to South America this spring. We want to take advantage of every opportunity for a generally beneficial two-way exchange on a continuing basis.

Kissinger

1. Summary: Latin American objections to the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 prompted postponement of the March Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Buenos Aires. While the Department acknowledged the action raised doubts about the new regional dialogue, it stated that strengthened relations with Latin America remained a key element of U.S. foreign policy.

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D750036–1053. Confidential; Priority; Stadis. Drafted by Bloomfield, cleared by Shlaudeman and Einaudi, and approved by Bowdler. In telegram 637 from Buenos Aires on January 28, the Embassy transmitted an Argentine Government statement announcing that Latin American objections to discriminatory provisions of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 had prompted it to propose postponing the Buenos Aires meeting of Foreign Ministers. (Ibid., D750031–1016) According to a January 23 memorandum of conversation, Kissinger and Argentine Ambassador Orfila discussed the possible postponement of the Buenos Aires meeting. Kissinger told Orfila that Latin Americans “can’t have it both ways. They can’t complain of the lack of priority [in U.S. policy] and behave as they are behaving now. Why should the United States put itself in this position? What do we get from the new dialogue? It seems to me that the new dialogue consists of a list of things for us to do and there is not much interest in what the Latin Americans can do for us.” The memorandum is published in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. E–11, Part 2, Documents on South America, 1973–1976, Document 25.