File No. 862.85/606
The Ambassador in Argentina ( Stimson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10.16 p.m.]
At my first audience with the Minister for Foreign Affairs this morning, I again brought up the matter of the German ships. He [Page 737] told me that he was now proposing a project in Congress to take all the ships of German ownership though under Argentine flag such as the Presidente Mitre; the Argentine Government making a deposit of what it deems them worth; seven or eight ships in all, about 5,000 tons and in good repair which they could use for transportation to the United States. I urged the advisability of expropriating the ships actually under the German flag (see Embassy’s telegram of October 1, 7 p.m.) and he replied that the principal objection was that their state of repair was so bad that they could not be utilized in any event until a year or more, that is to say, after the probable termination of the war.