711.32/209
The Assistant Secretary of State (Berle) to the Assistant Secretary of War for Air (Lovett)
My Dear Mr. Lovett: I should like to call to your attention a situation in Brazil that you are interested in and regarding which I feel confident you will wish to lend a hand.
Over the past two years or more, there has been an accelerated shifting of the burden of internal transportation in Brazil away from the coastwise fleet, of which about one half has been lost (and the efficiency decreased by the convoy system), to trucks and railways. Trucking, because of the fuel shortage and in the absence of spare parts, is unable to carry its full share. The ability of the railroads, furthermore, to shoulder their share has been seriously affected by the lack of spares, replacements and new equipment; by the greatly increased shipments of substitute fuels such as high-ash Brazilian coal, and wood, in place of imported coal and oil; and by the demands for space for ever-increasing quantities of strategic materials for export. Brazil has not received any trucks for civilian use for about two years and the scarcity of spare parts has reduced, according to expert opinion, the trucking fleet by about 25 or 30 percent.
The situation has become acute in recent weeks owing to a tunnel cave-in on the main line of the Central of Brazil Railway between Rio and São Paulo.
According to the reports we are receiving, the big urban centers such as São Paulo and Rio, dependent upon trucks and railways for civilian food supplies, are experiencing an unprecedented rise in the cost of essentials.
President Vargas recently instructed his Ambassador to Washington to take up on an urgent basis with this Department and the War Department the assignment of 3,500 trucks to the Brazilian Army. Although these trucks would serve military purposes of the Army in the general sense, they would be of the utmost importance in tiding the civilian economy through the immediate critical period. A requisition for 500 of these trucks is already, I am told, in process, with the approval of the Joint Brazil–United States Defense Commission in Washington.
The Department has now received from Ambassador Caffery a telegram,79 of which a paraphrase is enclosed, indicating the helpfulness which favorable action in the truck matter would have in the all-important [Page 578] negotiations regarding military air bases which are now in progress. I believe that Colonel Pierrepont Hamilton, who has been sitting with representatives of this Department on these negotiations, has brought this message to your attention.
I should certainly appreciate your drawing the attention of the competent authorities in the War Department to the seriousness of the situation as described above and to the importance we attach to President Vargas’ expressed need for trucks for the Army.
Sincerely yours,
- No. 1117, March 24, 6 p.m., supra.↩