835.00/11–2845: Telegram
The Ambassador in Costa Rica (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:07 p.m.]
624. Depcirtel November 27, 4 p.m.,33 mytel 621, November 27, 3 p.m.34 Have delivered text of Secretary’s statement to Foreign Office but since Minister Foreign Affairs35 was ill also took text to President Picado.
President stated his Govt would heartily support policy of US Govt on Uruguayan initiative or on any other matter. (I believe that should Dept desire public statement on part of Costa Rican Govt supporting Secretary’s statement an intimation from me to President might well secure desired result. Shall take no further action, however, unless instructed to do so by Dept.) President states in his personal opinion appropriate multilateral intervention is a theory which should be tried out in practice. He obviously had certain mental reservations, however, for he added that in speaking not as President of the Republic, but as Teodoro Picado, the situation in Nicaragua and Honduras where there is no tendency to Nazism is far different from that in Argentina, He has often wondered whether were he President of a country traditionally opposed to democracy with a large proportion of Indian population, he would not have been compelled to govern more or less along the same lines as Somoza36 or Carias37 and whether if either of these men had found themselves President of Costa Rica, they might not have governed democratically.38
(I may add that Picado reiterated to me he is going to do everything possible to secure free elections here in February.)
- See footnote 31, p. 196.↩
- Not printed; in this telegram the Ambassador reported that the Minister for Foreign Affairs indicated some dangers in the Uruguayan proposal (835.00/11–2795).↩
- Julio Acosta García.↩
- President Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua.↩
- President Tiburcio Carias Andino of Honduras.↩
- For an expression of a later position by Costa Rica, see telegram 807, December 15, from Montevideo, p. 209.↩