810.74/562
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Louis J. Halle of the Division of the American Republics
| Participants: | General Davis, Chairman of the Consortium; Colonel Sarnoff, President of RCA; Mr. Winterbottom, Acting President of RCA; Mr. Long, Assistant Secretary; Mr. Duggan, Political Adviser; Mr. deWolf, IN; Mr. Halle, RA. |
Mr. Long expressed the view that the prospective election of Mr. George Hayes as manager of Transradio Internacional in Buenos Aires should precede any action by the Company to close its circuits with the Axis. Everyone present agreed.
General Davis read a message he had received from Aguirre, President of Transradio Internacional, in which he indicated that the meeting to elect Hayes would take place this week and that he expected there would be a majority in favor. Mr. Duggan raised the question of whether it was necessary or would be possible to get Dr. Becu, now in Mexico, to send his proxy to Buenos Aires in favor of Hayes. Mr. Winterbottom said that the customary procedure was for the substitute director to attend meetings in a director’s absence, upon the invitation of the President. Since it was not certain how Becu’s substitute, Cardenas, might vote, it was decided that the Department ask the Embassy in Buenos Aires immediately to obtain Hayes’ estimate of whether Cardenas was going to attend the meeting, how he would vote, and how the other directors would line up.
It was decided that General Harbord should acknowledge the message from Beccar Varela (contained in the Embassy’s 1908 of October 2, 5 p.m.91), in which the latter suggested consultation with the Argentine Government prior to action by the Company to cut the circuits, with a message urging that Hayes’ election be expedited and stating that he would give his reaction to Beccar Varela’s suggestion after it had taken place. General Davis said he would send a reply to the message he had received from Aguirre, in which he would again express the hope that everything would be done to expedite the election of Hayes.
General Davis and Colonel Sarnoff advanced the view that it would not be practical to ask Beccar Varela, an Argentine, to withhold from his Government information which his loyalty to it might prompt him to make available. Colonel Sarnoff felt that, should the Chilean Company take action tomorrow to sever its Axis circuits, the directors of Transradio Internacional could use this as a supplementary [Page 158] argument for the action they were proposing to take. Mr. Duggan pointed out that should it be decided that the Company would notify the Argentine Government in advance, it would be advisable to defer such notification for as long as possible in order to leave as little time as possible for counter-action. However, it was agreed that no decision would be taken in this regard until after the election of Hayes.
Mr. Long stated that we had word from Chile to the effect that a valuable pretext for breaking the Chilean circuits would be supplied if it could be shown that otherwise necessary supplies of material for the Chilean Company would be cut off. He read the draft of a telegram to our Embassy in Santiago, containing a message to this effect from General Davis to Mr. Jory, RCA representative on the Board of the Company. General Davis agreed to having the message go.
Colonel Sarnoff referred to the “Cicero’s Oration” he had delivered in Mr. Long’s office on September 9 with regard to the possibility that the enemy was tapping our undersea cables. He said he had been called in to see General Strong, the Chief of G2 about this matter, and that as a consequence of the interview an experiment was being made to find out just how difficult it might be to tap our cables. A Navy craft was being sent out in the Atlantic to make the attempt, and Colonel Sarnoff offered to inform Mr. Long of the results of this experiment.
Colonel Sarnoff suggested that a study be made of all cable messages on ship movements that were transmitted during a recent period of some three months with a view to determining whether any correlation is evident between such messages and the actual sinking of ships. Mr. Long accepted the suggestion and said the Department would act upon it. He asked Mr. deWolf to see that this was done.
- Not printed.↩