-WESTERN: HEMISPHERE DEFENSE


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   c. Participate in the making of combined joint plans for hemi-
 sphere defense.
   d. Provide military equipment to the other American republics.
   4. This statement also provided that the policy should be carried
 out in compliance with the following principles:
   a. Military cooperation should not be extended any American re-
 public so as to provide it with a military establishment beyond its
 economic means to support.
   b. Training and equipment should not be provided an American
 republic where there is good reason to believe that they would be used
 for aggression, or in order to threaten aggression, against neighboring
 American republics, thus prejudicing the primary objective of inter-
 American unity.
   c. In accordance with the democratic principles that the United
States represents land upholds throughout the world, and on which
its moral credit is largely based, every effort should be made to assure
that U.S. training and equipment not be used to deprive the peoples
of the American republics of their democratic rights and liberties.
   d. All plans made and all measures taken to carry out this program
shall be with the approval of the Department of Defense in respect
to defense policy and with the approval of the Department of State
in respect to foreign policy.
  5. The following measures 'have been taken in implementation of the
  approved policies and principles set forth above:
  a. In 1945, the War and Navy Departments conducted exploratory
bilateral staff conversations with the armed forces of the other Ameri-
can republics for the purpose of determining the approximate
strengths of Latin American armed forces and the armaments required
to support these.strengths. Although these conversations could not
result in any agreement by the Unite lStates to supply military equip-
ment or in any agreement by the other governments to limit the com-
position and size of their ,armed forces, they served to focus the
attention of the other American republics upon the United States as a
source of procurement.
  b. Pending enactment of the Inter-American Military Coopera-
tion Act, an interim program was instituted by which limited amounts
of surplus equipment were offered for sale to the other American
republics under the Surplus Property Act.3 The Inter-American
Military 'Cooperation Act was never enacted and the interim program
was terminated in 1948.,
  c. The President requested Congress to provide authorization in the
Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 for selling to the other Ameri-
can republics equipment compatible with their economic condition
and with the needs of hemisphere defense, the United States to be
reimbursed by the recipient countries for the value of such equipment.

  3 Of 1944. See 58 Stat. 765.
  For pertinent documentation, see Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. viii, pp.
101
ff. and ibid., 1948, vol. ix, pp. 207 ff.
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