Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The American Republics, Volume V

840.51 Frozen Credits/9104: Telegram

The Ambassador in Argentina (Armour) to the Secretary of State

Buenos Aires, January 13, 1943—5 p.m.
[Received 8:17 p.m.]

86. Department’s undated 1097, received July 24;⁶⁴ and 2021, December 20 [26], 5 [7] p.m.⁶⁵ The Central Bank has confirmed to the Embassy that another semi-annual payment presumably about 700,000 pesos is being transferred through the Bank of the Province to Switzerland for service Auckland Swiss franc debt of the Province of Buenos Aires due the Dresdener Bank. This information came unexpectedly as the Central Bank in recent conversations had given the impression that a way could be found to avoid this transfer.

This Embassy and the British Embassy feel that this is a very important matter and it becomes more so owing to the conversations with the Central Bank occasioned by the threatened ad hoc freezing of the Bank of the Province and the Bank of the Nation.

Embassy is protesting this violation of the Washington and Rio Resolutions⁶⁶ to Foreign Office but requests that no action be taken by Treasury Department pending receipt of a report outlining implementation of point 7 of memorandum which accompanied my letter of December 24 to Under Secretary.⁶⁷ Report goes forward by courier on January 15. Essential that financial policy be coordinated with policies recommended in other fields, otherwise entire program would be endangered.

Armour

64. Not printed.
65. Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, p. 513.
66. For a summary of the Inter-American Conference on Systems of Economic and Financial Control, held at Washington, June 30–July 10, 1942, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, pp. 58 ff. For the Resolutions of the Third Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the American Republics, held at Rio de Janeiro, January 15–28, 1942, see Department of State Bulletin, February 7, 1942, pp. 17 ff.; for correspondence concerning this Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. v, pp. 6 ff.
67. Neither printed; point 7 of the memorandum indicated the objectives of financial control to be the reduction of remittances to the Axis, better supervision of remittances to neutrals, cessation of remittances to the Dresdener Bank of Berlin via Switzerland, reduction or elimination of new credits to Proclaimed List firms, closing out of loans to the same, the furnishing by the Central Bank to the Embassy of a breakdown of dollar accounts, and observance of the Resolutions of the Washington Conference (711.35/165–1/2).