#3-034
Memorandum for the Under Secretary of State
[Welles]
December 31, 1941 [Washington, D.C.]
Secret
Subject: Japanese Intentions to wreck Rio Conferences
and the Good Neighbor Policy.1
1. For your convenience there has been prepared the attached summary
of a series of communications between the Japanese Foreign Office and its
officials in the field. I wished this data brought to your attention before your
departure for Rio.
2. The communications have been sent during the past three weeks. A
file of the original messages are on hand in the State Department. They furnish
conclusive evidence that the Japanese are effectively engaged in wrecking the
Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America in every possible manner. A careful
perusal of Nos. 26620, 26682, 26751 and 26769 will give the details of their
immediate project for torpedoing the approaching conference at Rio de Janeiro.
A further dispatch of importance is one which outlines a plan to enlist the aid of
the Vatican. (No. 26856)
3. The War Department has received, in addition to this intelligence,
confirmatory information from many other sources as to the close collaboration
between the three Axis powers in Latin America. All three are busily spreading
propaganda injurious to the U. S. A. and exploiting to the utmost the news of their
recent successes.
4. Particularly active centers of Japanese activities are now located in
Lima, Santiago and Buenos Aires. The movements of Colonel Waki [Wachi],
former Military Attache in Washington, in his recent travels in Latin America, are
most significant in this regard. It seems evident that he is establishing a reliable
and intensive intelligence and propaganda organization throughout Latin
America.2
5. I am strongly of the opinion that the situation in South America is grave
and immediate. I am particularly concerned over the present hazard to which our
communications to the Near and Far East are exposed in Brazil.
6. I suggest that it might be dangerous to take these papers out of the
United States. Their loss would destroy our most important access to Axis plans.
Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected
Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.
Document Format: Typed memorandum.
1. At this time Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles was engaged in organizing the
Third Consultative Meeting of the American Foreign Ministers, scheduled to take place
in Rio de Janeiro, January 15–28.
2. Perhaps as a result of this memorandum, on January 1 Welles observed in a message
to the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay that he should tell that government that the United
States believed that "the continued functioning of the Axis diplomatic and consular
establishments in the Western Hemisphere creates under present conditions the
gravest danger to the security of all of the republics and to the ability of the American
governments to take necessary and adequate measures of defense. It is well known
that Axis consular officials are reporting continuously on the movements of ships and
on defense preparations. It is likewise notorious that the Axis diplomatic missions are
engaging in every type of subversive activity and are intervening in the most blatant
manner in the purely internal and domestic concerns of the countries where they are
stationed in order to foment internal discord and to promote the existence of conditions
which are in the highest degree prejudicial to the security of us all." (Foreign Relations,
1942, 5: 10.)
Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland and Sharon
Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic
version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 3, “The Right Man for the Job,”
December 7, 1941–May 31, 1943 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1991), pp. 43–44.