715.16/37
The Chargé in Salvador (Arnold) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 23.]
Sir: In answer to the Department’s instruction No. 209 of June 30, 1920, regarding the relations between the Governments of El Salvador and Honduras, instructing me to inform the Department as to what information I may have had which made me assume that no ultimatum was delivered to the Honduran Government by the Government of El Salvador, together with any other information [Page 746] in my possession which I consider justifies my endorsement of the statements made to me by the President of El Salvador, I have the honor to submit the following reasons for forming the opinion which I expressed to the Department:
Not only did the President repeatedly deny to me that an ultimatum had been sent to the Government of Honduras but also Doctor Juan Francisco Paredes, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Doctor Miguel Gallegos, Subsecretary of Foreign Affairs, both emphatically informed me that no ultimatum had been sent to the Honduran Government.
The assurances of these three high governmental officials coupled with the fact that Doctor Arrieta Rossi had been appointed Minister to Honduras and immediately left for his post in order, as the President informed me, to settle all difficulties existing between the two countries, amicably and diplomatically, caused me to form my opinion that no ultimatum had been sent by the Salvadorian Government to the Government of Honduras.
I have [etc.]