861.77 Chinese Eastern/612: Telegram
The Minister in Greece (Skinner) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 6—3:10 p.m.]
104. Contents of Department’s circular telegram of December 1, 4 p.m., received December 3d, was at once communicated to Minister for Foreign Affairs who issued strong press statement supporting American Government’s suggestions and declaring that Russia and China are obviously bound to suspend military action and to seek solution of the conflict by arbitration. This statement received wide publicity. Subsequently the Minister consulted Mr. Venizelos86 with respect to concrete action to be taken and requested me this morning to inform the Department that the Greek Government would adopt any course adopted generally by the powers, but being a small state could not take the lead and considered that it would be imprudent to make direct representations to Moscow otherwise than in conjunction with all the powers or in accordance with an agreed plan. Mr. Michalacopoulos [Page 404] reminded me that there were 200,000 Greek citizens residing in Russia now. Greece maintains no representative in China and would have to communicate with that power through some other government, probably the United States. In my opinion, Greece will move positively as soon as the Government is informed that all the principal powers are acting in the sense suggested in the Department’s telegram.
- Greek Prime Minister.↩