817.00/4759: Telegram
The Minister in Nicaragua (Eberhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:35 p.m.]
124. Following from Stimson:
“Following preliminary report to be available for use of President in announcing result of my negotiations. To be released for publication tomorrow if desired. Expect to remain here several days watching results and preparing certain necessary papers; then home possibly stopping Puerto Cabezas to see Sacasa. President Diaz has formally requested through me that the United States should supervise the coming Nicaraguan elections of 1928 with the purpose of making them free and fair and entirely beyond the influence or control of the Nicaraguan Government. My investigation has shown that this evil of Government domination of election lies and has always lain at the root of the Nicaraguan problem. Owing to the fact that a government once in power habitually perpetuates itself or its party in such power by controlling the election, revolutions have become inevitable and chronic, for by revolution alone can a party once in control of the Government be dispossessed. All persons of every party with whom I have talked admit the existence of this evil and its inevitable results and all of them have expressed an earnest desire for the supervision of election by the United States in an attempt to get rid of the evil forever.
To make this offer effective President Diaz proposes the creation by Nicaraguan law of an electoral commission to be controlled by Americans nominated by the President of the United States and offers to turn over to this board the entire police power of the State. This is to be accomplished through the organization of a nonpartisan constabulary under the instruction and command of American officers. He further offers to disband his army and to deliver their arms to the custody of the United States. He offers an immediate general peace in time for planting the new crop in June; a general amnesty to all persons in rebellion or exile and a return of all occupied or confiscated property to the owners thereof. To insure order during the organization of the constabulary he asks for a continuance in Nicaragua of a sufficient portion of the present naval force. Finally, in order to secure to his Liberal opponents a share in the Government during the intervening period before the election, he offers to create a coalition cabinet in which their leaders shall share.
I have consulted men representing all factions of the Liberal Party and they have unanimously and emphatically approved the plan for a supervised election in 1928 as the key to the solution of the present [Page 340] revolution. Dr. Sacasa’s representatives however, while enthusiastically indorsing the plan, demanded as a condition to their assent to a settlement that its author Mr. Diaz retire immediately from office and leave to some neutral substitute the control of the Government during the year intervening before the 1928 election. After long and patient negotiations in which all other difficulties were apparently eliminated they still insisted upon this point.
I then sent three American naval officers, Major Humphreys, Lieutenant Commander Moran and Lieutenant Frisbie, accompanied by the American, John Willey as guide and interpreter, into the revolutionary lines to invite General Moncada, the chief leaders of those forces, to confer with me and the Sacasa delegates on this subject. These gentlemen deserve great credit for the success of their difficult mission.
I met Moncada at Tipitapa. His attitude was frank and earnest. Under my questioning he admitted that while he believed he could defeat Government forces, neither he nor any Nicaraguan could, without American help, pacify and render tranquil the country and that with every week that passed the condition of anarchy was growing worse. He admitted that the country was becoming filled with groups of armed men responsible neither to himself nor to the Diaz Government. He warmly approved of the plan for our supervision of the 1928 election as the best method to save the country but, like Sacasa, he urged the immediate substitution of [for] Diaz for [of] some other man, chiefly as a point of honor to satisfy his army. He frankly told me, however, that if the United States had determined to support Diaz and to undertake this plan for the pacification of the country he would not oppose us and would endeavor to persuade his men to lay down their arms.
I had already come to the very clear decision that to yield on the question of Diaz would be wrong and foolish and likely to wreck the only practicable plan upon which can be based a prompt peace and the early reconstruction of the country. There is in Nicaragua today no division of parties based upon principles or party policies but the whole country is seething with bitter sectional and personal antagonism and suspicion. Behind every name which has been suggested to me as a possible substitution for Diaz, I believe, lie elements of opposition and discord. I am quite clear that in the present crisis no neutral or impartial Nicaraguan exists. In November 1926 after a careful examination of the facts, President Coolidge recognized Diaz as the Constitutional President of his country.65 During the 6 months which have intervened Diaz has shown exceptional intelligence [Page 341] in his conduct of government and great magnanimity to his foes. His present plan offers continued proof of both these characteristics. Cooperation by the Nicaraguan Government with our representatives in carrying out such a plan for a supervised election is vital. We are sure of it under Diaz; we should not be sure of it under any substitute whose name has been suggested to me. Moreover any attempt by the Nicaraguan Congress to elect a substitute for Diaz under the forms of Nicaraguan law would almost certainly in the present situation become the occasion of further bitter factional strife. Although Diaz has been subjected to a bitter press campaign of slander both in Central America and the United States, he is personally popular with the Liberal leaders and many of these have frankly stated to me that he was the most acceptable Conservative for the Liberal Party to have in the Presidency. We have formally announced our recognition of his Presidency to the world and have been followed by other nations both in Central America and Europe. In January, we formally notified Sacasa that even if he were successful in this war, being a revolutionary government, we could not recognize him and should continue to recognize the Diaz Government until the close of its term. To change now this position taken deliberately and in good faith and continued for so long, would inevitably so impair our reputation for consistency and fidelity as to greatly weaken our power to carry out the present plan to give Nicaragua fair elections and to stabilize her government. In all these conclusions Minister Eberhardt and Admiral Latimer, the American civil and naval representatives on the spot, emphatically concur. I told Moncada that I was authorized to say that the President intended to accept the request of the Nicaraguan Government to supervise the election of 1928; that the retention of President Diaz during the remainder of his term was regarded as essential to that plan and would be insisted upon; that a general disarmament was also necessary for the proper conduct of such election and that our forces would be authorized to accept the custody of the arms of the Government and those others willing to lay them down and to disarm the others. He at once yielded to that statement as did the Sacasa delegates when called in. I gave Moncada a letter to that effect66 to use in persuading his troops to disarm and steps are now being taken to draw the combatant forces apart and to place the American troops between them in order to receive the arms of both. A truce until Saturday67 has been declared for that purpose. This morning after further conference with Moncada I now believe it probable that he and most of the insurgent leaders will actively [Page 342] cooperate in the pacification and government of the country. I am thus hopeful that except for the action of small groups of irreconcilables and bandits, this horrible and bitter war is over and will be followed by an intelligent and constructive plan for the political and economic reconstruction of the country. Each of the foregoing steps has been taken with the help and approval of Minister Eberhardt and Admiral Latimer without whose devoted cooperation the result would have been impossible. Stimson.”
- See the Department’s press release of Nov. 17, 1926, Foreign Relations, 1926, vol. ii, p. 807.↩
- Quoted in telegram No. 122, May 4, 4 p.m., from the Minister in Nicaragua, p. 337.↩
- May 7.↩