740.00114 European War 1939/3902: Airgram
The Ambassador in Brazil (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 7—3 p.m.]
A–1070. With reference to Embassy’s airgram A–1045 of May 28, 1 p.m. advising the Department that Aranha had told me that the [Page 629] Brazilian Government would receive war prisoners under conditions set out by the Department, there is quoted herewith a memorandum prepared under today’s date by Mr. Simmons of this Embassy describing his conversation at the Foreign Office concerning the practical possibilities of carrying out this plan on the part of the Brazilian Government.
“I talked to Fraga this morning at the Foreign Office about working out details for the acceptance by the Brazilian Government of 3000 prisoners of war from North Africa. Fraga said that while the Brazilian Government was taking the position in principle that it would accept these prisoners, he felt that as a matter of fact there would be no possibility of their giving practical effect to such action. He said that he was speaking ‘off the record’ and he knew that the Brazilian Department of the Marine had given its consent but that the Ministry of War had not yet done so; that he did not see how they would be able to recommend favorable action except in the sense of a kind of gesture and expression of their willingness to cooperate in the war effort.
“Practically speaking, he said, there is no place to put these prisoners. They have no barracks, installations, barbed wire, kitchen equipment, beds, and the various items which would be necessary for such an operation.
“He also made the comment that, even were such accommodation to our wishes practically possible, sanitary conditions in the north of Brazil would in themselves make this impossible, and the political situation in the south of Brazil would make it unwise to place the prisoners there. He thought it best for them to go somewhere in the state of Minas Gerais, always assuming (and he doubted that such assumption would be justified) that Brazil would be in a position to actually accept these prisoners.”