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  4. Document 154

837.61351/3733

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of the American Republics (Bonsal)85

[ Washington ,] February 23, 1943.

Ambassador Braden telephoned me late yesterday evening to tell me that he and Zaydín had agreed on a statement regarding the sugar negotiations. He read it to me over the telephone and I gave him the Department’s approval. The statement is very brief and is not completely satisfactory. It refers to the fact that “certain details remain to be clarified” and states that representatives of the Cuban Government and of the Institute are coming to Washington for the purpose of drawing up the definitive contract. It gives the quantities of sugar to be made, but makes no mention of the stock pile. It also mentions diversification and the public works program.

The Ambassador tells me that López Castro85a and Oscar Garcia Montes for the Government and Arturo Mañas86 for the Institute will make up the Cuban Delegation in Washington.

There seem to be two principal points of difference remaining between ourselves and the Cubans:

(1)
The question of naming a maximum amount for the stock pile contribution, and
(2)
The question of whether the roughly 39,000 tons required for the manufacture of syrup can be made by the few mills which manufacture syrup in addition to their quotas under the allocation of the 3,225,000 ton crop or whether they must manufacture the syrup from their normal quotas. I am rather inclined to favor the Cuban contention, since during the last seven or eight years, these mills have manufactured (a) their quota of raw sugar in accordance with Decree-law 522 and (b) their share of the sugar syrup quota. If we now refuse to allow them to manufacture the equivalent of 39,000 tons of raw sugar into syrup over and above their raw sugar quotas, these mills will be comparatively much harder hit by the curtailment of production than other mills.

Philip W. Bonsal
  1. Addressed to the Under Secretary of State (Welles) and to the Adviser on Political Relations (Duggan).↩
  2. Amadeo López Castro, President of the Cuban National Development Commission.↩
  3. Consulting lawyer for certain large sugar producers in Cuba and representative of the Cuban sugar industry’s interests.↩