811.34553B/6: Telegram
The Chargé in Portugal (Kennan) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:03 p.m.]
2469. For the Under Secretary and Matthews. Department’s 1816, October 19, 1 p.m. My telegram was based on the belief that if we approach Salazar with this entire program, at this time, he will not only refuse us outright but will henceforth view with great suspicion even any minor desiderata we may later advance with respect to the Azores. In other words, he will slam the door entirely and it will not be easy to get him to open it again. The reasons for this belief are as follows:
1. Salazar is not prepared for anything of this sort.
No mention of it was made to him during British negotiations. He assented to British requests reluctantly and only in part. Even this assent was given solely on basis of alliance and he thought that when he had given it he had satisfied all demands.
2. He feels that he has strained his relations with the Germans to utmost already and that he will be lucky if he gets off with sinking of a ship or two and possibly some reprisals in Azores area. The idea of giving the Germans further cause for offense at this moment would appall him.
[Page 559]I cannot disagree with this analysis. German-Portuguese relations seem indeed perilously close to the breaking point. Any further strain may well cause complications which would run counter to our desire to keep the Peninsula quiet at this juncture.
3. Salazar who fears association with us only slightly less than with the Russians has made a great point of the argument that in dickering with the British, he was only honoring an agreement which existed long before this war began and that his concessions were not to the United Nations as such, a temporary anti-Axis constellation, but only to Portugal’s historic relationship to England. This was one of the arguments on which he relied to keep the Germans quiet.
4. German propaganda directed to Portugal has recently plugged the line “Now you’ll see what you’ve gotten yourselves in for; the British agreement was only the beginning, other demands will follow from other members of the United Nations, the Americans are in the background and will soon want facilities of their own et cetera,”
5. What we are asking is not only much more than what the British got: It considerably surpasses what they originally requested.
Our existing program advanced at this time would confirm Salazar’s fears that we want nothing less than the whole archipelago, lock, stock and barrel, and it might very well make him adamant against even the mildest of further requests. It is true that when the Portuguese are willing to dicker, it is well to start by asking for plenty. When they are afraid to dicker and fear that their hand is going to be forced, the opposite is more apt to apply.
6. I have no quid pro quo to offer to Salazar.
While the British did not definitely undertake to defend the Portuguese mainland, they went so far as they could in this direction and Salazar probably feels that by honoring the alliance, he has in effect engaged them to do the same. He knows that they have guaranteed to respect the integrity of his empire. He also has their assurance that they will get out of the islands when the war is over. He doubtless hopes that he has committed them by implication to the support of his regime. He has also obtained advantages in the line of supplies from overseas and merchant shipping facilities for which he is inclined to thank the British.
7. The British Ambassador here has no instructions which would enable him to support us in these requests.
He has in fact the impression that our program is the same one which was at one time submitted to London by the American Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was rejected by London as excessive, and he is at a loss to explain its reappearance here. He has instructions to support us only in certain specific requests for the use by us in individual instances of facilities already granted to the British and in our general desire to operate ferry service via the Azores. He fears that if I go to Salazar with the existing program Salazar will only call him at once to account and reproach him for not giving warning in the preceding negotiations that any concessions made to England would be followed by even greater demands from us.
8. A number of the facilities we are asking for are ones which were flatly refused to the British.
Salazar in his talks with the British would not hear of facilities on São Miguel Island for the reason that it is the center of Portuguese [Page 560] administration in the islands. The permission to use an airfield there occasionally for emergency landings was granted only with much reluctance. Santa Maria and Flores Islands never came into question. At no place did the British request a full-fledged naval base of their own. Our desire to station naval vessels in any Azores ports we like goes much beyond the British desire to have a mercantile marine tanker and tug at Horta. Finally what we are asking in the line of communications not only exceeds British requests but would turn both British and American cable facilities in the islands into relay stations for our conduct of the war in Europe.
So much for the negative side. The question now arises what can we then do to gain our objective.
My answer to this is as follows:
Unless we are willing to connive at the overthrow of Dr. Salazar, which would involve a responsibility I shudder to contemplate, we must gain his confidence. Our assurances of last fall3 and our forbearance during the British talks have already made a beginning in this direction. I have reason to believe that my recent talk with him was likewise helpful.
My suggestion would be that instead of calling upon him to make another anti-German demonstration on the heels of the first one—which was quite enough for his nerves—we now endeavor first to slip quietly and gradually through the gap which the British have succeeded in opening for us. …
I think that for the moment we should proceed in the most disarming and inconspicuous manner possible to work in an occasional American ship and plane to the use of the facilities, gradually increasing this practice, according to the degree of resilience we encounter.
Once the Portuguese have been conditioned to the presence of American planes and ships around the islands and we have thus gotten our foot in the door, I think we could well approach Salazar with the proposition that the intertwining of our war effort with that of England makes it impossible for our Armed Forces to be excluded from bases used by England but that administrative considerations require in some cases that the physical facilities used by our forces at those bases be kept separate from those of the British; that for this reason we must ask Portugal to permit us to set up certain separate establishments of our own in the islands similar—and wherever possible adjacent—to those of the British. The British Ambassador would presumably be able to support us in such a proposal and he could then make good use of the “friends of friends” argument which is a brilliant and constructive thought. Whoever negotiates the [Page 561] agreement on our behalf should be authorized to make judicial use at the proper time of assurances to respect Portuguese sovereignty in all Portuguese possessions and also not to retain the facilities after the war without the agreement of the Portuguese Government. He should know just how far he can go in promising military support in the event of repercussions from Germany. He should be allowed also to play with our economic warfare pressure which might well be built up in advance as a bargaining factor. Finally, he should know whether it is the intention of our Government to make an open agreement which would be published to the world like the recent British arrangement; or whether we would be prepared to make an informal arrangement and to play down publicity to the maximum degree with a view to easing the shock to German-Portuguese relations. The latter should not be technically impossible in view of the rigid censorship in the islands; and it would undoubtedly sweeten the pill for Salazar. The above procedure may not give us all that we want. But it would reduce the risk of our getting nothing at all.
I appreciate deeply the President’s generosity in allowing me to state these views. They reflect of course only a local outlook and are not intended to constitute a general picture of all the broader factors involved which I realize only the President is in a position to survey.
- Reference is to President Roosevelt’s letter of November 8, 1942, to President Carmona of Portugal, assuring him that the presence of American Forces in French North Africa presaged no threat to Portugal or her island possessions; for text of letter, see Department of State Bulletin, November 14, 1942, p. 905.↩