Office of the Historian

840.51 Frozen Credits/9345: Airgram

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

Washington, February 19, 1943—8:10 p.m.

A–548. You’re A–85, January 15 [14]; Department’s telegram no. 68, January 20; Department’s telegram no. 101, January 27;10 your telegram no. 240, February 4. Please send by air mail to the Department a brief progress report covering the Embassy’s activities toward securing Chilean observance of the Washington Resolutions since the break with the Axis. A similar progress report should be sent to the Department every 2 weeks until further notice.

The Department would like to have the Embassy’s views on whether it would be preferable, as a matter of procedure, to concentrate on the adoption and implementation of one phase of the desired controls at a time. If this type of approach appears likely to achieve more rapid results, it would seem that a logical choice, as the first goal, would be the elimination of financial transactions with enemy territory. For this purpose it would seem desirable to single out immediately the Banco Alemán Transatlántico, the Banco Germanico and the Banco Francés e Italiano for close Chilean supervision to prevent transactions covered by Resolution I (b).

Hull
  1. None printed.↩