816.01/1–2245: Circular telegram

The Secretary of State to the Diplomatic Representatives in the American Republics

ReDeptel Circular December 5, midnight,11 and previous. Consultations with regard to the possibility of extending recognition to the incumbent régime in El Salvador12 have been proceeding for 3 months without there having been any charges of Axis involvement in its accession to power. It consequently appears to this Government that [Page 1066] there is no need for further consultations under Resolution 22 of the Committee for Political Defense.13

The consultations have not heretofore demonstrated any consensus in favor of such recognition, but the opinion has been expressed that the Aguirre régime did not enjoy popular support and that there was active opposition both within and without the Republic. The fact that El Salvador has recently held elections14 Which were not accompanied by violence would appear to establish that the Aguirre Government does in fact exercise control of the country and that the opposition if existent is not active. Furthermore, the Government of El Salvador has declared its intention to fulfill its international commitments.

You are requested to bring the foregoing to the attention of the Foreign Minister of the Government to which you are accredited and to ask whether he is in agreement. If he does agree, please also inform him that your Government feels that, in accordance with the traditional principles which have guided the American Republics, recognition should be extended to the Government of El Salvador at an early date, and that it would like to be informed of the views of the Government to which you are accredited before reaching its own final decision. You should add that if the other American Republics agree to extend recognition in the near future, the United States will inform him well in advance of the date upon which it plans to take formal action, in order that his Government, should it so desire, may take the step simultaneously.

You should add that if the Governments of the American Republics are to recognize the Government of El Salvador in the near future, it would seem desirable to do so in time for that Government to be represented at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers15 of the Republics which have collaborated in the war effort (as El Salvador has done), and that the question is therefore one of some urgency, if the consultative procedure is to be completed in time to permit the Government of Mexico to extend an invitation to El Salvador sufficiently in advance to permit the latter to arrange to be properly represented.

Repeated to Managua, Tegucigalpa, Buenos Aires and San Salvador for information only.16

Stettinius
  1. Ibid., p. 1111.
  2. The government of Provisional President Osmin Aguirre y Salinas.
  3. For text of Resolution 22, see telegram from the Chairman of the Committee, December 24, 1943, Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. v, p. 34; also printed in Emergency Advisory Committee for Political Defense, Second Annual Report, July 15, 1943–October 15, 1944 (Montevideo, 1944), p. 79.
  4. January 14–16, 1945.
  5. The Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, held at Mexico City, February 21–March 8, 1945 (the Chapultepec Conference); for documentation concerning this Conference, see pp. 1 ff.
  6. Nicaragua and Honduras had already recognized the Aguirre regime on October 24, 1944.