560.M5/41: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France ( Edge )
31. Your February 4, February 6.45 For Edwin C. Wilson. You are instructed to proceed to Geneva at such a time as may be convenient to you prior to the opening of the Conference for the Discussion of a Tariff Truce on the morning of February 17, 1930, and to remain at Geneva during the period of the Conference and for such a time following the Conference as you may find necessary for completing inquiries and preparing reports to the Department.
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The Department desires that at Geneva you associate yourself with the Consulate assuming charge of the political and economic work of [Page 241] the Consulate insofar as it relates to the Conference and cognate matters. Consul Everett is being instructed to render you full assistance in this respect.
Inasmuch as the Department’s note declines the League’s invitation to be represented at this Conference, your “association with the Consulate”, as well as its serving practical ends, is designed to forestall possible interpretation of your duties as those of an “official observer”.
The Department attaches great importance to this Conference, not so much because it is likely to lead to any immediate results in line with its announced agenda, as because it is regarded as the first step in a possible reorientation of European trade and tariff policy of vital concern to American commercial and financial interests. It is thought, on this account, that private expressions of opinion from responsible individual delegates as to present and prospective trends in European economic policy may be fully as significant as any formal action which the Conference itself may determine. You should report fully to the Department your observations and all developments of importance, especially those affecting American interests. Reference is made to Diplomatic Serial No. 886, December 5, 1929.46
In this connection, the Department leaves to your discretion entirely the extent to which you will go in attending sessions of the Conference and in establishing relations with the delegates. The Department, however, perceives no objection to your entering into extensive and frank relations with the delegates at the Conference with the natural limitation that it does not desire to be placed in the position of taking part, and you should, of course, take due care that nothing which you may say be interpreted as commitments on the part of this Government.