715.1715/593: Telegram
The Chargé in Nicaragua (Castleman) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 11—2:26 a.m.]
108. A morning paper prints the text of the exchange of notes between Costa Rica and Nicaragua relative to the Costa Rican offer of mediation, also the Honduran reply to the Costa Rican offer, a Guatemalan communication to Costa Rica relative to Nicaragua’s reply to its offer of mediation, and a Salvadoran note of the Government of Costa Rica.
Minister for Foreign Affairs states that this material was given out in Costa Rica, to his annoyance.
The Nicaraguan reply to Costa Rica, as principle, courteously declines the Costa Rican offer, saying “(my Government) is in the case of informing (you) that, as it considers the mediation initiated from the year 1918 by the Government of the United States of America (to be still) pending, it has already informed that Government, with motive of the new difficulty which has arisen in relation to the old [Page 74] question of the frontier between Honduras and Nicaragua, of the satisfaction with which it would see the continuance of its good offices. The Department of State has advised that it is giving the matter its most attentive consideration.” The note further states Nicaragua gave the same reply to Guatemala’s offer, and adds, “in any case, if my Government should remain free from the engagements mentioned nothing would be more welcome to it than” to confide the obtention of a solution to the President of Costa Rica.
The Honduran note states in declining the Costa Rican offer, that “due to the measures of friendly Governments an understanding has been reached between the Foreign Offices of the two nations prepared against the mobilization of troops which could be brought about by the recent friction.”
Guatemala told Costa Rica that the Guatemalan offer had been declined because it had official notice that the good offices of the United States, accepted in 1918, were still pending.
Salvadoran note uninteresting.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs is vexed at Costa Rica’s divulging these essentially confidential documents and tells me that as the proposition of American mediation was never taken up formally with the Department, the Nicaraguan Minister in Washington will be instructed to consult with the Department relative to the “conveniencia” of manifesting formally the satisfaction with which Nicaragua would see a continuance of the good offices of the United States, and then, if there is no objection, formally to express this principle. The Minister for Foreign Affairs takes this course consequent upon the President’s desire for American mediation expressed to me (really meant our intervening in general; see my telegrams 86, 89, 9730) and in view of the Department’s helpfulness in the case, hoping that it may be considered a continuance of the action of 1918. The President is particularly desirous to avoid acceptance of any mediation except that of the United States and does not want to be obliged to pay further attention to Ubico’s offer, which he feels chary about.
Repeated to Tegucigalpa.