714.44A15/85a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Guatemala (Des Portes)
51. The British Ambassador yesterday informed me that the British Government was now prepared to propose to the Government of Guatemala the arbitration of the controversy between the two Governments by an ad hoc tribunal of international lawyers, provided the President of the United States would agree to select a United States citizen as umpire on the tribunal. The President has today authorized me to inform the British Ambassador that he will be glad to accept this responsibility.
I assume consequently that the British Government will in the immediate future inform the Guatemalan Government of the proposal above mentioned, but because of the conversation I had with Dr. Salazar in Panama, I shall appreciate it if you will inform him of the above for his confidential information, and express to him my great pleasure that arbitration of this dispute will now be possible and that the umpire will be an American citizen. Please extend to him my personal felicitations on the success of his long and patient negotiations in this matter and state that this development appears to me to be a further happy indication that boundary controversies on this continent are susceptible of solution by juridical procedure.