817.00/6251: Telegram
The Minister in Nicaragua (Eberhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:00 p.m.]
93. In recent weeks some sixteen men of known or reported Conservative leanings have been imprisoned in Managua by the present Government. Most of them have been released after a few days’ imprisonment, and no legal charge of misdemeanor or offense appears to have been brought against them. Last Friday two nephews of General Chamorro were so imprisoned and also the well-known editor Gabry Rivas. So far as this Legation is informed the latter three are still imprisoned. General Chamorro called personally to request the Legation’s special attention to his own case and guarantees such as he states President Hoover offered him verbally in their conversation on the Maryland. He left Saturday for his ranch across the lake and was accompanied on the trip by an American marine.
Opinion seems to be divided as to the extent to which this attitude will be carried by the Government but seems rather general to the effect that intimidation rather than terrorization or reprisal is meant.