723.2515/3371supp: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Chile (Culbertson)40
55. You will please transmit immediately to the Minister for Foreign Affairs the memorandum quoted in my No. 53 of May 10, 6 p.m., under cover of the following note:
“Excellency: Under instructions from my Government I have the honor to present to Your Excellency, with the request that you be so good as to transmit it to His Excellency the President of Chile, certain stipulations which the President of the United States of America, not as Arbitrator, but in the exercise, at the request of both parties, of good offices, proposes to the Governments of Chile and Peru as the final bases of a solution of the problem of Tacna-Arica.
[Page 800]In presenting this proposal to Your Excellency’s Government I am directed by the Secretary of State to say that, in making it, the President of the United States of America has been guided by agreements reached directly between Chile and Peru on questions involved between them in the solution of the problem of Tacna-Arica. The proposal is therefore not to be interpreted as indicating that either the President or the Government of the United States of America expresses any opinion or view or makes any suggestion in any way whatever regarding any future disposition by either party of that portion of the territory in dispute which will be in its possession should the proposal enclosed herewith be accepted by the Governments of Chile and Peru.”
You will please say that the terms of this proposal will not be made public by the President until the answers of Chile and Peru have been received and it is therefore requested that no publicity be given to this matter at this time. When the replies of both Governments have been received you will be advised. Cable Chilean reply.
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date to the Ambassador in Peru as telegram No. 58, mentioning Department’s telegram No. 56 of May 10, 6 p.m.↩