724.3415/1904: Telegram
The Chargé in Brazil (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:25 p.m.]
73. 1. The Brazilian Ambassador has been instructed to return to Washington immediately to cooperate in the Chaco conferences. I am led to believe that the Foreign Office has been handicapped in the present negotiations by Lima e Silva’s failure to keep it informed of developments there.
2. With respect to the Argentine draft of the collective cable,23 Brazil has replied through the Argentine Ambassador here stating that Brazil favors a cable restricted to the preamble and point 1 of the Argentine draft. Brazil considers that points 2 and 3 of the Argentine draft would respectively debilitate the Neutral Commission and transfer its powers to the group of neighboring republics, and would bind the latter to unspecified “emergency measures”, which would make their joint action intervention instead of mediation. Dr. Mello Franco stated confidentially that he knows that Bolivia would reject such a formula.
As a counter-proposal, Dr. Mello Franco has suggested the creation of a commission to investigate the events of June 29th and July 15th, to be formed by the United States, Brazil and Argentina. He pointed out that as the aggression of June 29th and July 15th occurred while a conference on non-aggression was in session, the conference presumably is nullified for the moment, and he apparently believes that as the former resulted in the withdrawal of Bolivia, an appraisal of the two incidents by such a commission of investigation would make it possible for the conference to be resumed. He presumably also considers that while such a commission should be in existence, no further conflicts would be likely to take place.
Repeated to Buenos Aires.