Telegram from Mexican Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Washington

X/442/17

LETTERGRAM [CORREOGRAMA]

Washington DC

25 October 1962

C. Manuel Tello,

Secretariat [Ministry] of Foreign Relations,

General Directorate of International Organizations,

Mexico, D. F.

135. - In the following I allow myself to inform you about the development of the extraordinary session celebrated by the Council [of the OAS] on the 23rd of this month, to consider the request by the Government of the United States that the Council, in accordance with what is established in Article 6 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, that the organ of consultation be immediately called and authorized, in accordance of Article 12 of that Treaty, to act provisionally as such. As annex 1 I enclose the note from the Representative of the United States.

Once the request was read, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, [Dean Rusk,] representing his country, read a long declaration about the situation in Cuba that has been created because of the existence in this country of weapons of an offensive character.

Once his declaration was finished, the Representatives in the Council pronounced in favor of the call. It was my turn to speak after about the Representatives of Argentina and Guatemala. As I reported by telephone to the Secretariat [Ministry], my intervention was along the following lines:

The last session of the Council that was convened to examine a request to call the Organ of Consultation was that of 14 November 1961. On that occasion, as the request, in the Mexican government’s opinion, did not fill, among others, the requirement of alleging that the inviolability or territorial integrity or the sovereignty or the political independence of an American State had been affected, the Mexican Delegation [Representación] declared that it would not support it.

Announcing this position at the Council, I permitted myself to remind, and I cite textually from the act, that “on as many occasions when a Member State had requested calling a meeting of Ministers of Foreign Relations, Mexico had voted favorably.”

Consistent with the above, the Secretariat [Ministry] of Foreign Relations has given me instructions to vote in favor of the draft resolution presented by the United States Delegation, to call the Organ of Consultation and ask the Council to constitute itself and act provisionally as such.

Submitted to a vote, the Resolution that I enclose as annex 2, was approved by the 18 favorable votes. Bolivia and Uruguay abstained. The Representatives of these two countries expressed that they were doing so because of a lack of instructions, which were not late in arriving in the case of Bolivia and that the Representative of Uruguay has now received, as a result of which it is possible to say that the call was approved unanimously.

Once the voting was made, a recess of half an hour was agreed.

Once the Council’s session continued, now provisionally acting as the organ of consultation, US Ambassador [deLesseps S.] Morrison asked, in name of the North American government, that the resolution be read, that I enclose as annex 3 and requested that the session be suspended until three in the afternoon in order to give time for the Representatives to ask for instructions. In a separate oficio, I will inform you about the afternoon session on the same 23rd of October.

Very attentively,

Vicente Sanchez Gavito

Ambassador