837.00/3638
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State
The Cuban Ambassador called to my attention the press reports which were appearing in the United States and in Cuba to the effect that Ambassador Welles had announced that there will be no progress in the commercial treaty negotiations until the political conferences had reached a satisfactory conclusion. In other words, said Mr. Cintas, Mr. Welles is using the economic distress in Cuba, which can only be cured by a new commercial treaty, to bring pressure to bear upon President Machado to carry out Mr. Welles’ wishes; the Ambassador gave vent to his feelings on this subject and to the improper course which Mr. Welles was pursuing, which he said led to certain disaster; one or two alternatives would result—either President Machado would be shot or American Marines would be landed; he saw no other way out of the impasse which was rapidly approaching.
I told Ambassador Cintas that at this morning’s press conference I had been asked to explain the press statements to which the Ambassador had just referred; I had said in reply to these inquiries that informal conversations were proceeding between the Embassy and the Cuban Government in preparation of the more formal treaty negotiations; that Ambassador Welles was so preoccupied with his [Page 332] political conferences that he had not had time up to the present to take up seriously formal treaty negotiations, but that undoubtedly he would do so as soon as he had the opportunity; that I had denied, I said, that the United States was holding up commercial treaty negotiations until President Machado had come to terms.
The Ambassador talked at length in his usual strain of the iniquities of the present situation and of the false position which Mr. Welles was taking in dictating a policy to President Machado; he warned me that such a policy was doomed to failure and that any such failure would be a great blow to the prestige of the United States.