Office of the Historian

824.504/61a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Bolivia (Boal)

Washington, January 9, 1943—10 p.m.

40. The Bolivian Ambassador57 has presented to the Department a request for:

  • “1. The sending of experts appointed by the Government of the United States to undertake, together with Bolivian authorities appointed for the purpose, a study of the situation of the laborer in Bolivia and, in particular, of the mine worker, with a view to the betterment thereof.
  • 2. The study resulting therefrom will serve as the basis for the decisions and determinations which the two interested governments or their authorized agencies may consider it suitable to adopt with the double end of improving the conditions of labor in Bolivia and assuring a steady production of strategic materials for the United States.
  • 3. Although, for fear of restricting it, it is not necessary here to indicate the field of this investigation it is useful to note that it must take into account a number of problems, such as problems of transportation, supplies, prices, health and hygiene, mine safety and other similar problems.”

The Department is accepting this invitation and it is hoped that the United States members of the Commission, numbering probably four, accompanied by some advisers, will be able to leave Washington within a week.58 You are requested to advise the Department promptly of the persons selected by the Bolivian Government to serve on its section of the Commission.

The primary interest of the United States in the problems to be considered arises from its need for the strategic minerals produced in Bolivia and its vital concern in seeing that production is maintained and increased. In keeping with its established policy, this Government has, of course, no intention of intervening in any way in the internal aspects of the Bolivian labor situation. It is, however, glad to furnish expert advice on labor conditions at the request of the Bolivian Government.

With reference to your 25, January 7, noon,59 the Department understands, as a result of your telephone call on January 8, that no action on or reply to that telegram is necessary. The BEW60 desires that [Page 608] Kazen61 endeavor to secure as rapidly as possible by all appropriate means the data requested which will be of use to all the members of the Commission, and the Department wishes you for the same reason to continue your efforts to get the data requested in the Department’s telegram no. 975 of December 26, 1942.62 Please forward the data requested by the Department and the BEW as compiled on any particular point, not waiting to include it in a report answering all questions at once.

Hull
  1. Luis Fernando Guachalla.↩
  2. The departure date was January 28, 1943.↩
  3. Not printed.↩
  4. Board of Economic Warfare.↩
  5. Philip A. Kazen, BEW representative in Bolivia.↩
  6. Not printed; this telegram requested data on wages, living costs, tin production and costs, and the strike situation in the mines (824.5045/33).↩