861.00/2659
The Secretary of State to President Wilson
My Dear Mr. President: I lay before you a communication from the French Embassy in relation to the sending of High Commissioners to Siberia61a and also a memorandum from Mr. Phillips on the subject.62
Personally I feel that in view of our policy it would be unwise to do this and that this is another move to impress our action in Siberia with the character of intervention rather than relief of the Czechs. The suggestion that our High Commissioner be the head of an international commission seems to be a bait to draw us into this policy which has been so insistently urged by Great Britain for the past six months.
It would relieve the situation if you authorized me to say to the Ambassadors that we did not intend to appoint a High Commissioner and to state to the press that at present we had no intention of making such an appointment.
If we decline to cooperate in this I believe that the Commission will have little weight.
Faithfully yours,
- Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. ii, p. 340.↩
- Not printed.↩