557. Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation Between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury (Anderson), Washington, July 14, 1960, 10:50 a.m.1
After a brief discussion of the Ministerial meetings in Ottawa,2 Mr. Anderson said the Canadians had been rather shocked at the extent to which things had deteriorated in Cuba and quoted one of the Canadians who had told him that nobody knows anything about Latin America in Canadian Government, except Green who was there once. The Secretary referred to a long document3 he was now going over regarding Latin America and said he thought he might take the occasion to send this under a personal note to Howard Green.
Anderson said he has been told by the Texas Company that their biggest plant in Cuba can’t go more than 30 days without spare parts which spare parts can only come from the US, Germany, possibly Britain or France. Anderson said he didn’t think the Soviets can supply these parts. Anderson said he thought it was terribly important whether the European countries will stand with us on this in not supplying the spare parts. The Secretary said he thought both the British and Germans would stand with us; that certainly the British have the same interests as we do because of Shell. Anderson said Texas has furnished both the State Dept and Commerce Dept with lists of the parts and suppliers and Anderson said he thinks we ought to make sure they don’t make contracts with other European countries who could supply these parts. The Secretary said he agreed and would look into this right away.
The Secretary then said he had before him a memorandum from Tom Mann4 on payments for Cuban sugar; that there is between $35 and $75 million not remitted to the Cubans but they are in a very difficult position of being subject to fine if they don’t pay and are worried about the fines adversely affecting any possible future claims. The Secretary said this raises the question of whether we invoke at least partially the Trading with the Enemy Act. The Secretary said he knew some of Anderson’s people had been opposed to partial invoking, [Page 1014] and the Secretary suggested he and Mr. Anderson might discuss this after NSC tomorrow. Mr. Anderson said that would be fine; that this may be something we should do on a partial basis.
[Here follows discussion of matters unrelated to Cuba.]
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Herter Papers, Telephone Conversations. No drafting information appears on the source text.↩
- Documentation on the third meeting of the Canada-U.S. Ministerial Committee on Joint Defense held in Ottawa, July 12–13, 1960, is scheduled for publication in volume VII.↩
- Apparently a reference to the document described in footnote 6, infra. No record has been found indicating that Herter sent Green a copy of this document.↩
- A copy of this memorandum, July 12, is in Department of State, Rubottom–Mann Files: Lot 62 D 418, Cuba (July–Sept.) 1960. Also published in Declassified Documents, 1985, 978.↩