832.20/583
The Adviser on Political Relations (Duggan) to the Ambassador in Brazil (Caffery)
Dear Mr. Caffery: I have discussed with the General Staff Aranha’s draft of an agreement to cover Brazilian participation in military operations in the Mediterranean theater, which you enclosed with your letter of November 4, 1943. As you will undoubtedly have noted yourself, Aranha’s proposal contains a number of features which could hardly be acceptable to the War Department and others which have no place in an agreement between the two Governments or Armies.
When General Dutra was here, he discussed with the Joint Brazil-United States Defense Commission the question of Brazilian operations overseas and authorized General Carvalho69 to work out a draft agreement with General Ord70 to be submitted to the War and Navy Departments here and to the Brazilian Government. The Defense Commission prepared a rough draft which was sent down by General Carvalho about a month ago for General Dutra’s comments. I am enclosing a copy of this draft71 as further revised. The enclosed draft has been approved by General Carvalho subject to confirmation by his superiors with the exception of the underlined words at the end of Recommendation 3(a), which has not yet been taken up with General Carvalho but which should be satisfactory.
You will see that the Defense Commission’s draft is far simpler than Aranha’s and that it provides for Brazilian cooperation within the framework of combined operations under the Allied Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean without all of the objectionable and impossible features of negotiation in the field contained in Aranha’s proposal. I imagine that Aranha has the Defense Commission’s draft but that he or General Goes Monteiro wished to alter it in order to get concessions for Brazil which are not practicable.
It seems to me that the only thing to do is to tell Aranha that the Brazilian and American members of the Defense Commission have been discussing the terms under which Brazilian troops would be used for over two months and have reached agreement in principle on the enclosed draft subject to confirmation by their respective Governments [Page 647] and that we feel the negotiations should be kept within this framework. You might present the Commission’s draft to him in confidence pointing out that it is, of course, still in tentative form and not yet submitted to our War and Navy Departments since General Carvalho has been awaiting General Dutra’s comments and had asked that presentation here be delayed until he received a reply. I think it would be far preferable to keep these negotiations, dealing properly only with technical military matters, in military channels. You might consequently suggest to Aranha that the Defense Commission is awaiting General Dutra’s comments and will be glad to expedite action by the War Department as soon as they are received.
With best wishes,
Yours very sincerely,