824.51/951: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Undersecretary of State (Welles)
16. Your 5, September 22, 2 p.m. Can you add any details to your first paragraph references to exchange difficulties and to proposed use of advance? Department is also querying Legation, La Paz, on this. Could Bolivian Foreign Minister20 have his Government also provide Bolivian Legation here with full information for discussion with this Government?
As to the possibility of tying up such an advance to purchases by this Government of tin for reserve stocks, there appears to be no way of modifying the formal procedure specified by the law. The advertisement for bids on approximately 4,000 tons of tin is about to be issued by the Procurement Division of the Treasury. The specifications in the advertisement could be met by London standard tin as well as other high grade tin so that presumably the Mineral Bank of Bolivia could bid for all or a part of this order if it has a claim on high grade standard tin (made in whole or in part from Bolivian ore). It is understood that the bids must be on a c. i. f. basis, however, so that the Mineral Bank would have to commit itself to delivery of the tin in the United States.
Should the Mineral Bank be successful in securing a part of this order, it might be possible then to make an advance to the Bolivian Government against fulfillment of the contract with the Procurement Division. Bids will not be opened, however, until 30 days after the date of advertisement. There is no possibility of purchases of tin ore under this program.
Pierson has other phases under advisement.
- Alberto Ostria Gutiérrez.↩