724.3415/2768: Telegram
The Ambassador in Argentina (Bliss) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 10—6:20 p.m.]
6. Your circular January 7, 3 p.m. Minister for Foreign Affairs told me this afternoon that he had informed Espil21 by air mail for communication to neutrals of his sounding out Bolivian and Paraguayan Governments in hope of finding formula acceptable to both. When asked the nature of the possible solution he said he did not know, that he was feeling his way and as soon as anything promising or concrete presented he intended to communicate it to neighboring countries and Neutral Commission.
In course of conversation he said that jurisconsult of Foreign Office was more familiar with background of long-standing Chaco controversy than anyone in Bolivia or Paraguay having assisted at Bolivian-Paraguayan Conference in 1928 in Buenos Aires22 and possessing quantities of maps and documents on the subject which suggests that he may later advance this as a pretext for holding in Buenos Aires any ultimate negotiations.
- Felipe A. Espil, Argentine Ambassador in the United States.↩
- See “Minutes and Documents of the Conferences of Paraguayan and Bolivian Plenipotentiaries held in Buenos Aires under the auspices of the Argentine Government” in Proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry and Conciliation, Bolivia and Paraguay, March 13, 1929–September 13, 1929 (Washington [1929]), pp. 265 ff.; see also Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. i, p. 675.↩