710.11/12–1345: Circular telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Diplomatic Representatives in the American Republics
On November 24, the Soviet newspaper Trud of Moscow published a news despatch from Montevideo which quoted liberally from an article in the newspaper El Debate criticizing the United States for active interference in the internal affairs of other American republics. Significant portions of the El Debate article printed in Trud, as reported by the United Press, follow.
“We criticize the United States for turning the Pan American agreements into an instrument for the interests of its own foreign policy; for sowing enmity among Latin-American countries, arming one country against another. Guatemala is being armed against Nicaragua, Peru against Ecuador and Brazil against Argentina.
[Page 208]“We criticize the United States for a lack of diplomatic tact and finesse. The form of the conduct of inter-American consultations and convocation of the Pan American conferences is a genuine puppet game in which the South American rulers and diplomats play the roles of mechanically subservient dolls.
“We do not share the position of those who welcome American intervention in the Argentine. Constitutional government doesn’t exist only in Argentina; also in Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Ecuador and a majority of the Latin American countries.
“…51 No one can honestly assert that the governments of Portugal, Brazil, Paraguay, San Domingo, Italy, Greece and China are better than Argentina’s. If the United States supplies arms to the Chungking government fighting against an army of 3 million men defending the interests of a population numbering 150,000,000 … Then the United States must show greater moderation in the Argentine … We criticize the United States for underground activity in Latin America of an army of special agents, for blacklists for a colonial form of economic and ideological oppression.”
The United States is also accused of placing severe pressure on Ecuador to force her to sell the Galápagos Islands.52
The foregoing is called to your special attention because (1) it constitutes the first time that direct criticism of the United States policy in Latin America has appeared in the Moscow press (aside from criticisms of admission of Argentina to the United Nations Conference); and (2) the criticism thus voiced indirectly by the Soviet press borrows from a journal, El Debate, which is the organ of the reactionary, anti-American, pro-Peron Herrerista party in Uruguay. Both the publication of the article in Moscow and the source from which it is drawn are therefore of significance.
In connection with your reporting on the policy and activities of Soviet representatives and Soviet-inspired groups, you are requested to take special note of any indications of a tendency for extreme leftwing groups to unite with extreme right-wing groups to oppose the United States, as is the case in the article quoted above.