Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics in Rio de Janeiro in 1942 was both the end of the series of inter-American meetings called in order to formulate an ‘American attitude’ toward the events in Europe and also the formalization of the war-time co-operation which followed. But, at another level, it was a clash of the foreign policies of Brazil, Chile, Argentina and the United States which both typified and shaped inter- American relations well into the 1950s. This discussion, which is largely based on United States goveernment documents, examines the inter-meshings of these foreign policies at the Rio meeting and the immediate aftermath of that conference.
1 Documents cited by number are from the United States National Archives, Department of State, Washington, D.C. The citation of these documents is sufficient to locate them although the author has not attempted to describe each document in terms of authorship or address because he feels that these citations are frequently misleading. For the same reason, the author in his citations from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRs) series only uses the volume and page number.
2 710. Consultation (3)/8, memo, 27 Feb. 1941.
3 710. Consultation (3)/9, memo, 24 March 1941.
4 710. Consultation (3)/9/7, memo, 16 March 1941.
5 720. Consultation (3)/9 2/7, memo, 24 March 1941.
6 710. Consultation (3)/9 3/7, memo, 9 April 1941.
7 710. Consultation (3)/9 4/7, memo, 22 May 1941.
8 710. Consultation (3)/11: telegram, Embassy n Rio to Secretary of State (hereafter S/S), 10 June 1941.
9 FRs, 1941, VI, 119–20.Google Scholar
10 ibid., p. 120.
11 e.g. Consultation 3/267, memo., 15 Dec. 1941; and 710. Consultation 3/112 2/11, memo, 18 Dec. 1941.
12 710. Consultation 3/112 4/II, memo, 27 Dec. 1941.
13 710. Consultation (3)/6 1/2, memo, 6 Jan. 1941.
14 FRs, 1942, v, 10–11; and 710. Consultation 3/132: telegram, Embassy in Rio to Under- Secretary of State (hereafter U/S), 29 Dec. 1941.Google Scholar
15 740.0011 Pacific War/1512, Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 24 Dec. 1941.
16 FRs, 1942, V, 16–22.Google Scholar
17 710. Consultation (3)/116: telegram, Embassy in Asunción to S/S, 26 Dec. 1941.
18 710. Consultation (3)/118: telegram, Legation in La Paz to S/S, 26 Dec. 1941.
19 710. Consultation (3)/118: telegram, S/S to Legation in La Paz, 29 Dec. 1941.
20 FRs, 1942, v, 245.Google Scholar
21 Lawrence, Littwin, An Integrated View of Chilean Foreign Policy (New York University, unpublished dissertation, 1967), p. 203.Google Scholar
22 825.458/37, Bowers to Hull, 22 Sept. 1941.
23 El 165 aniversario de Ia Independencia de Estados Unidos fué celebrado brillantemente’. El Mercurio, 5 07 1941; and 123 Bowers, Claude G./262. Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 7 July 1941.Google Scholar
24 FRs, 1941, VI, 39–45.Google Scholar
25 FRs, 1942, v, 7, 8.Google Scholar
26 710. Consultation 3/605, memo, 30 Dec. 1941.
27 740.0011 European War 1939/18259: telegram, Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 7 Jan. 1942.
28 ibid.
29 710. Consultation (3)/254B: telegram, 7 Jan. 1942.
30 FRs, 1942, v, 27.Google Scholar
31 740.0011 European War 1939/18260: telegram, from Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 7 Jan. 1942.
32 FRs, 1942, v, 27.Google Scholar
33 ibid., p. 28.
34 ibid.
35 This is also the interpretation of Lawrence Duggan in his posthumous book The Americas: The Search for Hemispheric Security (New York, 1949).Google Scholar
36 710. Consultation (3)/598, miscellaneous bound telegrams, U/S to Embassy in Santiago, 79 Jan. 1942.
37 710. Consultation (3)/261, memo, 23 Dec. 1941.
38 Alton, Frye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere (New Haven, Conn., 1967), p. 166.Google Scholar
39 710. Consultation (3)/302: telegram, U/S to S/S, 33 Jan. 1942.
40 Bryce, Wood, The United States and the Latin American Wars (New York, 1965).Google Scholar
41 710. Consultation 3/629, Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 5 Feb. 1942.
42 710. Consultation (3)/148: telegram, Embassy in Rio to S/S, 31 Dec. 1941.
43 710. Consultation (3)/302: telegram, Embassy in Rio to S/S, 13 Jan. 1942.
44 710. Consultation (3)/508A: telegram, S/S to American Delegation in Rio, 25 Jan. 1942.
45 710. Consultation 3/477: telegram, Embassy in Rio to S/S, 25 Jan. 1942.
46 A good discussion of this question is to be found in McCann, Francis Daniel Jr, Brazil and the United States and the Coming of World War II, 1937–1942 (Bloomington, Ind., unpublished dissertation, University of Indiana, 1967), pp. 161–78.Google Scholar
47 710. Consultation (3)/428A: telegram, S/S to Embassy in Buenos Aires, 21 Jan. 1942.
48 This is based on conversations between Acting Foreign Minister Pedregal, Bowers and Cecil Lyon of the Embassy, 710. Consultation (3)/605, memo, 22 Jan. 1942.
49 ibid., and FRs, 1942, v, 301.
50 710. Consultation (3)/598: miscellaneous bound telegrams, Embassy in Rio to Embassy in Santiago, 23 Jan. 1942.
51 710. Consultation (3)/408: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 19 Jan. 1942.
52 FRs, 1942, v, 30.Google Scholar
53 ibid., p. 31.
54 ibid., p. 33.
55 710. Consultation (3)/450, memo, 22 Jan. 1942.
56 710. Consultation 3/605, memo, 23 Jan. 1942.
57 710. Consultation (3)/458: telegram, U/S to S/S, 23 Jan. 1942.
58 ibid.
59 This account is primarily based on a conversation between Armour and the officials of the Argentine Foreign inistry. 710. Consultation (3)/598: miscellaneous bound telegrams, Embassy in Buenos Aires to U/S in Rio, 22 Jan. 1942.
60 710. Consultation (3)/458: telegram, U/S to S/S, 23 Jan. 1942.
61 FRs, 1942, v, 34.Google Scholar
62 ibid.
63 ibid., p. 39.
64 ibid.
65 ibid.
66 ibid., p. 42
67 The best articles at the time were Popper, David H., ‘The Rio de Janeiro Conference ot 1942’, Foreign Policy Reports, XVIII (15 04 1942), no. 3;Google Scholar and Charles, Fenwick, ‘The Third Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs at Rio de Janeiro’, American lournal of International Law, 36 (1942), pp. 169–203.Google Scholar
68 710. Consultation (3)/629, Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 5 Feb. 1942.
69 710. Consultation (3)/718: telegram, Embassy in Buenos Aires to S/S, 13 March 1942.
70 Michael Francis, Las tensiones de Panamericanismo (Buenos Aires, forthcoming), ch. 6.
71 825.00/1609, Bowers to Welles, Feb. 1942.
72 710. Consultation (3)/552: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 31 Jan. 1942.
73 710. Consultation (3)/562: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 2 Feb. 1942.
74 710. Consultation (3)/650: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 57 Feb. 1942.
75 710. Consultation (3)/708: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 6 March 1942.
76 710. Consultation (3)/723, memo, March 1942.
77 710. Consultation (3)/712: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, II March 1942.
78 710. Consultation (3)/722: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 14 March 1942.
79 710. Consultation (3)/746, memo, 16 March 1942.
80 740.0011 European War 1939/21679: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 19 May 1942.
81 710. Consultation (3)/811: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 13 July 1942; and 740.0011 European War 1939/26072: telegram, Embassy in Santiago to S/S, 27 Nov. 1942.
82 Francis, , op. cit., ch. 4.Google Scholar
83 Cordell, Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 vols., New York, 1948), 11, 1148–9.Google Scholar
84 ibid., p. 1149.
85 ibid.
86 Seven Decisions that Shaped History (New York, 1950), p. 117.Google Scholar
87 FRs, 1942, v, 37;Google ScholarSeven Decisions that Shaped History, pp. 114–21;Google Scholar and The Time for Decision (New York), pp. 220–34.Google Scholar
88 Hull, , op. cit., pp. 1147–8.Google Scholar
89 ibid., p. 1150.
90 ibid., p. 1144.
91 710. Consultation (3)/254C: telegram, U/S to Embassy in Buenos Aires, 7 Jan. 1942.
92 McCann, , op. cit., pp. 172–8.Google Scholar
93 p. III.
94 ibid., p. 120
95 Hull, , op. cit., pp. 1227–31, gives more detail of his side of the problem.Google Scholar