724.3415/4175: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received 12:35 p.m.]
268. 1. Yesterday evening in the Sixth Committee the Bolivian delegate speaking on instructions from his Government made a statement which is interpreted here as announcing the termination of the [Page 81] Buenos Aires negotiations. I am informed that a like statement was to be delivered by Bolivian representatives at Washington, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. The Bolivian delegate began by declaring that he had been authorized to communicate to the Assembly all the documents necessary for making clear the Bolivian position with regard to the Argentine proposal. These documents had been circulated. He then continued
“I am to inform the Assembly that the United States and Brazil considered the proposals for amendment submitted by Bolivia to the Argentine proposal to be reasonable.
In the second place I must state that if my Government accepted the consultation offered to it on July 12 it did so because there was still a certain interval that must elapse before the meeting of the Assembly which is the only jurisdiction that Bolivia at present recognizes.
The Bolivian Government therefore thought it ought [not?] to omit the possibility of any negotiation that might be calculated to lead to the end of the conflict. At no time, however, have we thought that these negotiations could in any way whatsoever delay, impede or break up the procedure to which appeal had been made before the Assembly. My Government, therefore, remains firmly attached to this view. It has put the dispute before the Assembly and it is from the Assembly that it awaits a solution either by means of conciliation or by way of recommendation.”
2. The Paraguayan representative declared that although his Government still entertained legal doubts in regard to the integral application of article 15 he had been instructed to state that his Government hoped that the Assembly would not terminate before obtaining definite results in the direction of the restoration of peace and that it was desirous of doing nothing which would in any way impede the course of procedure directed towards that end.
3. Cantilo followed with a noncommittal statement which leaves the Argentine position ambiguous.
4. The Chilean representative pronounced himself unequivocally in favor of immediate action by the League.
5. The Peruvian representative made a noncommittal statement.