Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The American Republics, Volume V

824.504/195: Telegram

The Ambassador in Bolivia (Boal) to the Secretary of State

La Paz, February 19, 1943—4 a.m.
[Received February 21—2:33 a.m.]

359. For Duggan from Magruder. On returning to La Paz upon completion of visits to various mining areas we had a full session of Joint Commission yesterday afternoon. We presented to our Bolivian colleagues the topics we regarded as of paramount importance and arranged for the preparation of memoranda on special topics such as education, social security, housing, nutrition, sanitation, et cetera, by American experts in conjunction with authorities of appropriate Bolivian Governmental departments. We hope these memoranda will be available for our consideration upon our reassembling after the trip to the Beni region starting today. Giardino will remain in La Paz to coordinate these activities.

At the meeting yesterday afternoon we did most of the talking. We did not succeed in eliciting from the Bolivians what lay in their own minds as to the direction our recommendations should take. They evidently expect us to prepare the preliminary draft of the report.

From the difficulties which the Minister of Labor had in filling out the Bolivian personnel on the Commission it may be inferred that there has been some reluctance on the part of the Bolivians to be associated too deeply with the work of the Commission because of possible political repercussions. For the same reasons there may be difficulties in achieving a joint report signed by both delegations. Responding to inquiries some days ago the Minister of Labor—who was designated Chairman of the Joint Commission by presidential decree—stated that he would not be expected to sign the report because he would receive it somewhat in a judicial capacity and be responsible for advising the Bolivian Government as to the extent to which our recommendations should be followed out. Victor Andrade has also stated that he will not sign the report because being a member of Parliament he wants to retain his freedom of action. Andrade at first expressed his purpose to join us in part of the visits to mining areas but he failed to do so. Capriles,⁸⁰ Lozada,⁸¹ and del Villar⁸² who accompanied us throughout the visits and who with the Minister of Labor sat with us in the joint session, will presumably join in the report if they find it acceptable.

We decided against making an interim recommendation along the lines of Rockefeller’s letter to Welles, dated January 2, 1943.⁸³ The Commission found it necessary to subdivide itself in visits to the mining areas and we have not yet sufficient opportunity to organize our views in joint session. Furthermore, before calling for the despatch to Bolivia of various types of specialists mentioned in Rockefeller’s letter we thought we ought to have a better idea of the appropriate organization of this work and of its general scope. [Garbled word] Payne of the Servicio Inter-Americano de Salud Pública is formulating a program of sanitation and nutrition work for our consideration. In addition to the foregoing we felt that without knowing what final report we might get the Bolivians to agree to such a report might be in the nature of an anti-climax if we made the preliminary recommendations as originally contemplated.

We do not anticipate that we will be able to make any dramatic recommendations which will quickly enhance the standards of living and the productivity of Bolivian laborers. It will have to be a long-range program approached from amy [many] angles. It will cost money apart from the technical advice and assistance we are prepared to contribute. If this cost is to fall upon the mining companies or the Bolivian Government or in part upon each they will inevitably ask us (as some have already intimated) how they can be expected to sustain such a program of education, housing, public health, sanitation, social security, et cetera if the United States cannot give them any assurance that their market for minerals upon which their economy is at present based will be maintained for a reasonable period after the war. The program recommended in the Bohan report⁸⁴ and now just being put in operation by the Bolivian Development Corporation⁸⁵ contemplates the ultimate removal of Bolivian economy during the primary dependence on minerals but the [apparent omission] perpetuated many years. Meanwhile, there is something to be said for extending the mineral contracts for a period, say, of for 5 or 10 years with prices gradually stepped down from the present high. Our mission offers no opinion on this suggestion at the present time but we do feel it will be most unfortunate if we should make such a recommendation and then have our Government turn it down. On the other hand if in our report we ignore this consideration which looms so large in Bolivian thoughts it may be expected that the Bolivian Government before starting to put into effect our long-range recommendations will ask the United States Government what assurances it is prepared to give along this line. In one way or another the question will be back in our laps. In fact control in recommendations would naturally be affected by which assumption we make—a long-term minerals industry or a part time industry collapsing after the war. If we should recommend a long-range program which would be used only in case the industry remains stabilized for a considerable period of years the Bolivian Government might well read into our report the tacit assumption that we expect the United States to make such stabilization possible.

I should appreciate the Department’s observations on the foregoing for our guidance by the time we reassemble in La Paz with the Ecuadoran Government February 25.

Agreeable to the Department’s instructions our mission has kept in closest touch with the American Ambassador. In all instances we have followed his advice which we have found to be uniformly sagacious and well-informed. The Ambassador after making a close study of conditions here for many months is if anything more optimistic than some of us have been inclined to be on the chances of accomplishing something really significant toward the betterment of labor conditions in Bolivia.

I have tried to keep the mission out of the spotlight. I have refused to give press interviews and have only given one brief innocuous press release. I urged the Minister of Labor not to take along newspaper reporters on our visits to the mines. Our silence or secrecy has been the subject of some kidding and critical comment in the local financial institutions. Though the papers keep referring to the “Magruder Mission” I have tried to emphasize that the Minister of Labor is the Chairman of the Joint Commission and that he should do the talking. [Magruder.]

Boal

80. Remberto Capriles Rico.
81. Jesus Lozada replaced Gaston Arduz as a member of the Mission, representing the Ministry of Labor.
82. Humberto del Villar represented the Ministry of Economy on the Mission.
83. See footnote 75, p. 609.
84. Not found in Department files. For substance of the recommendations of the United States Economic Mission to Bolivia, see the Department’s note of August 14, 1942, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, p. 603. Merwin L. Bohan was Chief of the Mission.
85. For correspondence on the Bolivian Development Corporation, see ibid., pp. 592 ff.