SWEDEN’S BREACH OF NEUTRALITY HELP FOR U-BOATS HUN MESSAGES SENT ARGENTINA DUPED
WASHINGTON.
How the Swedish Legation in the Argentine, acting as the secret means of communication between the German Chargé d’affaires in Buenos Ayres and the Berlin Foreign Office, transmitted information of the sailing of ships and directions for their destruction by submarines, was revealed today in official dispatches made public by the State Department. The Secretary of State has made the following statement:
“The Department of State has secured telegrams from Count Luxburg, the German Chargé d’affaires in Buenos Ayres, to the Foreign Office in Berlin, which, I regret to say, were dispatched from Buenos Ayres by the Swedish Legation as its own messages, addressed to the Stockholm Foreign Office.
Mr. Lansing published the translations of the German Chargé d’affaires cipher dispatches without comment as to how they fell into the hands of the Government or any indication of what is to come as the result. Copies of the State Department’s announcement were delivered simultaneously with the publication to the Argentine Embassy and the Swedish Legation here.
Besides revealing the manner in which Germany used Sweden in her machinations in Argentina, the dispatches show how the German Chargé d’affaires, at a time when Argentina was having a critical diplomatic controversy with Germany over the submarine destruction of her ships, was sending through the Swedish Legation information of the sailings of vessels with recommendations that they be sunk.
In the absence of any official comment on the disclosures, it appears that the manifest purpose of the United States in publishing the correspondence is firstly to show the relations between Germany and Sweden, and secondly to disclose to Argentina where German influences seem to have been strongest. Germany recently gave Argentina a promise that no more of her shipping would be submarined in violation of international law. It was announced that Argentina had accepted Germany’s promise as a satisfactory solution of the situation which threatened a break in diplomatic relations if not actually war.
With the exception of Argentina, practically all Latin America has lined up with the United States in the war on German autocracy. – Reuter.