Science, People & Politics

In Europe, in June 1947, tensions mounted as Britain and France welcomed the Marshall plan for European reconstruction, but the U.S.S.R. spurned the proposal¹. Nevertheless, on 12th July, a conference was held in Paris to discuss the Marshall plan. Eastern European nations boycotted.

On the same day, Argentina and Chile signed a declaration saying they were convinced of their right of sovereignty over the South American Antarctic, and that they would soon conclude a treaty agreeing a demarcation of the Argentinian and Chilean Antarctic.

On 2 September 1947 the Inter-American Treaty of reciprocal assistance (Rio Treaty)³ was signed, leading to the foundation of the Organisation of American States. Both Chile and Argentina were founding signatories. In London the Cabinet decided to continue to maintain British title and British posts in the Falkland Island Dependencies.

Britain's interactions and negotiations with Argentina in the late 1940s also covered beef, wheat and aerospace contracts. As noted above, this was a hungry world, and it was desperately trying to re-establish a non war footing, whilst nursing traumatic wounds to bodies politic.

Perhaps in part to smooth negotiations Britain, on 17 September 1947, offered for the first time to have its Antarctic dispute settled by the International Court of Justice. At about this time Argentina was also courting German and Italian scientists^3a.

In December 1947, Britain's embassies in Santiago and Buenos Aires delivered diplomatic protests to the governments of Chile and Argentina about trespass on Britain's sovereign territories during the summer. The British Cabinet started the New Year with a refusal in January 1948 to authorise force, following Argentinian landings on Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands⁴. Probably a geologically smart move. That month both Argentina and Chile rejected Britain's protests of the previous month, and Dr Juan Bramuglia, from the Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote to the British ambassador that the only resolution needed was between Chile and Argentina.

In February 1948, following a speech made by President Videla on Greenwich Island, relationships between Britain and Chile took a turn for the worse, because the President's speech, reportedly, included the words,

"The viciousness of antiquated European imperialism threaten with armed violence to despoil Chile ....Those who suffering from the nervousness of a convulsed Europe, are so attempting, and thus violating the principles of the United Nations Charter and Inter American Rights, should remember that such aggressions are directed against all American nations."

There followed an exchange between Ernest Bevin (1881-1951), secretary of state for foreign affairs, and the Chilean ambassador to Britain, Mr Bianchi. Bevin told the Ambassador that Britain's actions to defend its territory [which included Greenwich Island] were legitimate, and President Videla's language was not what he would expect from the head of State of a friendly government. Mr Bianchi said that the translation was faulty, and should have read "remains of an antiquated Europe", not "viciousness of an antiquated Europe."⁵

FOOTNOTES
1. The Nato bookshop with short video report and archive footage of Vyacheslav Molotov leaving on the first day of the Paris Conference about The Marshall Plan.
http://www.nato.int/ebookshop/video/
declassified/#/en/sources/919_molotov_refuses_marshall_plan/
Accessed 22nd February, 2013.
2. Key dates of The Marshall Plan, provided by the U.S. Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/marshall/mars.html
Accessed 22nd February, 2013.
3. Inter-American Treaty of reciprocal assistance (Rio Treaty)
http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/sigs/b-29.html
Accessed 22nd February, 2013.
3a. Ortiz. L.E. (1996). Army and Science in Argentina: 1850-1950, pp153-184. In National Military Establishments and the Advancement of Science and Technology. Forman. P., Sánchez-Ron. J.M. (Ed). Kluwer Academic Press.
I added the Ortiz reference, on which I base my assertion of the Perón government courting Italian and German scientists post World War II, on 16th June, 2013 for completeness. Ortiz notes the four military coups in Argentina of 1930, 1943, 1955 and 1966. He covers the post-revolutionary desert campaigns, which displaced indigenous peoples, and the policy of encouraging mass European immigration. Close links with the British Navy are mentioned, as is the purchase of military surpluses following the First World War. He says oil was discovered accidentally in 1907.
See also:
Raanan. R. (2010). Argentine Jews Or Jewish Argentines?: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Diaspora, p77 and p 78. Brill (Leiden).
Raanan writes, "...at the time Argentina, like other countries, was trying to encourage the immigration of scientists, engineers, technicians, and military experts ...." who had been employed in Germany. She identifies particularly Ronald Richter, an Austrian physicist who arrived in Argentina in 1948 and worked on the country's nuclear research program, as well as Kurt Tank, an expert in aerodynamics, and Hans Ulrich Rudel, a highly decorated fighter pilot with the Luftwaffe, who became a test pilot for the Argentinian Air Force (Fabríca Militar de Aviones).
Ortiz refers to four miltary coups. Raanan makes reference also (p71) to the ousting in early 1944 of General Pedro Pablo Ramirez, who was President of Argentina following the 1943 military coup, by General Edelmiro J. Farrel. General Farrel became President Farrel. The policy issue at stake was that General Ramirez had bowed to pressure from the US, and on 26th January 1944 had severed diplomatic links with Berlin and Tokyo, abandoning Argentina's neutrality. Later the Farrel government would declare War on Germany, but after its defeat by the allies. Throughout this turmoil Britain and Argentina remained friendly nations with one another, but the US and Argentina were at loggerheads. The US was not acting diplomatically in 1943/44 as though Argentina was a friendly, or even an independant, nation. To my mind the situation suggests it is fatal to the understanding of international relations between States to interpret those relationships during World War as one would in peacetime.
I knew of the Ortiz reference in 2003. I have just learned of the Raanan reference, and so have added it to this URL. 5th July, 2013.
4. FO 371/97370.
5. FO 463/2

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