Foreign Affairs Building; delegates (see shot list)




Initials



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Background: Nineteen nations, most of them from Latin America, are meeting in Mexico City in an attempt to see that nuclear weapons are not introduced into Latin America.

On April 19th, the third session of the Committee on the de-nuclearization of Latin America opened a week-long meeting which will attempt to evolve a treaty to effectively keep nuclear weapons out of all of Latin America.

The Chairman of the conference is Senor Alfonso Garcia Robles of Mexico, who on April 20th proposed a resolution for all countries to sign that would pledge to keep Latin America free of nuclear weapons.

This met with the resistance of Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. The Brazilians claim such a treaty would be worthless unless Cuba signs it as well as the nuclear powers: the United States, Russia, France, United Kingdom and the Peoples Republic of China. Cuba has announced it has some small Russian-built missiles with nuclear warheads capable of hitting Miami Beach, Florida, USA.

Representative from atomic research organizations outside Latin America are observing the conference and consulting on peaceful purposes of nuclear energy which would not come under any ban agreed upon by the conference.

Observers from Japan, Poland, and Yugoslavia are in attendance also.