Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/1263: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Chile (Bowers)36

Washington, December 20, 1939—7 p.m.

175. Your 237, December 19, 10 p.m. It is the belief of the Department that the reference in the Argentine statement to “the adoption of rules to prevent belligerent vessels from supplying themselves and repairing damages in American ports” is sufficiently general to permit of a careful study by the American republics of all the methods which may be open to them to attain the objectives set forth in the Declaration of Panama, and that it would not be desirable to delay the issue of the statement now under consideration pending a definition of those methods.

This opinion has been communicated to our Embassies in Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires and may be communicated informally in your discretion to the Chilean Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Department is gratified to note that the Chilean Government is in agreement as to the urgency of issuing this statement.

Hull
  1. A similar telegram was sent on the same date, as No. 74, to the Chargé in Peru in reply to his telegram No. 106, December 19, 6 p.m., p. 110.↩