767.68119 E/1: Telegram
The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State
[Received April 24—1:10 a.m.]
252. Our telegram 251 of April 23. It is greatly to our advantage as well as to that of the conference that Montagna has been chosen chairman of the economic committee. I think he will be helpful to American interests and his ability in negotiating should go far toward solving the most difficult problems confronting the conference. He wished to be chairman of the first committee, that on judicial questions. He is an expert in that field but he was refused the chairmanship of the committee.
Montagna failed in his advocacy of several small committees, as Rumbold, supported by Pellé, insisted on three large committees. Fortunately, however, Montagna defeated the attempt of Rumbold to reopen the conference according to the former steam-roller methods used by Curzon and succeeded in securing an invitation for Ismet to take part in the preliminary informal discussion with respect to organization. In this way any opposition at the beginning has been avoided.