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{
    "localId": "225249115",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 50-48, Probably Argentine Policy Toward the United States to 1952 and Its Effects on United States Interests",
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    "id": "225249115",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/225249115",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 50-48, Probably Argentine Policy Toward the United States to 1952 and Its Effects on United States Interests",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/225249115",
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        "Intelligence Files"
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    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 15,
            "logicalDate": "1949-02-15",
            "month": 2,
            "year": 1949
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{
    "seq": 20,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602196/875477/875477-03-20.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "SECRET\nculate profits, whatever hope it held for the future, held little immediate interest for\nUS investors in the absence of dollar funds to remit; and the depreciation of the peso\ndecreed at the same time as the liberalized base for calculating profits appeared, in\nthe absence of any special conversion rate agreement, to cut down the dollar total of\nblocked profits. The expected supply of ECA dollar funds did not materialize. In\naddition, prospects of bumper crops in the US and substantial improvement in Euro-\npean agricultural production reversed Argentina's position in international trade from\nthat of being able to make exorbitant demands in a sellers market to one of competing\nfor buyers at reduced prices. The exhaustion of hard-currency exchange, the failure\nof new dollar supplies to materialize, and the loss of favorable position in food sales\nhave forced the Perón administration to face the necessity of assigning priorities\nbetween the various elements in its foreign economic policy, and perhaps modifying\nthe program of government intervention.\nThe crisis has underlined the conflict between the policies of independence and of\neconomic development and the effect of these policies on the domestic position of\nthe Perón regime and on US-Argentine relations. If the government is unable to pay\nfor industrialization in dollars earned in international trade, as it had apparently\ncounted on doing, it must pay in concessions and guarantees to US companies or in\nspecial arrangements with the US Government in order to finance the industrialization\nprogram, and these concessions to foreign interests involve a change-possibly danger-\nous to the stability of the Perón regime-in the nature of Argentine domestic and\nforeign policy as developed by that regime. Alternatively it must modify its indus-\ntrialization program to suit the reduced dollar receipts, eking these out with goods\nfrom European countries, and must reckon with the possibility that failure of the\nindustrialization program would in its turn have serious effects on the stability of\nthe regime.\nPresident Perón is thus faced with a grave decision-whether to sacrifice the imme-\ndiate appearance of complete independence that is so satisfying to his extravagantly\nnationalist fellow-countrymen, or to modify the program of economic development that\nwas to give Argentina real independence in the long run. The decision is the more\ndifficult because the chances for a face-saving compromise have been lessened by the\nregime's own activities; the Perón administration has resorted to such extreme measures\nin its economic and political foreign relations, in order to maintain Argentine inde-\npendence and to increase the administration's influence at home and abroad, that the\ndistance between those policies tending toward cooperation with the US and particu-\nlarly with US business and those policies now accepted as normal by Argentine public\nopinion has widened considerably. Thus, as the Argentine crisis has deepened, bridg-\ning this gap has become more difficult as it has become more necessary.\nAt present, President Perón, rather than making a clear decision or trying to\nachieve a compromise, appears to be temporizing while endeavoring to determine\nwhether or not US aid will be available in sufficient volume to offset the political dis-\nadvantages of curbing anti-US groups. The gravity with which he regards his pres-\nent dilemma is evident in recent crisis measures employed. He has been simultaneously\n13\nSECRET"
}