Office of the Historian

811.24522/76: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Ecuador (Scotten)

Washington, June 22, 1944—4 p.m.

534. In view of the change of government in Ecuador54 the Department would appreciate receiving urgently by airmail despatch your [Page 1063] estimate of the probable attitude of the new Ecuadoran Government toward the question of negotiations for the Galápagos base, and your recommendations as to the course this Government should follow in this regard. It would be helpful if you would indicate particularly:

(1)
Whether the present Ecuadoran Government is likely to bring up in the near future the question of an agreement for the wartime use of the base, and if so, what attitude this Government should adopt in view of its interest in obtaining long term rights to a base in the archipelago.
(2)
Whether, if the present government wishes to sign such an agreement, the draft transmitted in the Embassy’s despatch no. 1485 of May 3, with the revisions proposed in the Department’s 430, May 17, 8 p.m.,55 would be acceptable to it.
(3)
Whether there is any likelihood that the change in government in Ecuador may make it possible to begin negotiations soon with a view to obtaining long term rights to a base. In this connection you will recall that in conversations in the Department you expressed the opinion that such negotiations should be delayed until after the inauguration in September.

Have you any reason to change the views expressed in the memorandum56 you left with the Department on the question of delaying these negotiations?

Hull
  1. For correspondence on the recognition of the new government in Ecuador by the United States, see pp. 1036 ff.↩
  2. Neither printed.↩
  3. Memorandum of May 1, p. 1061.↩