793.94/4599: Telegram
The Minister in Switzerland (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 6—6:35 p.m.]
57. The ideas which you expressed to me in our telephone conversation of March 4th and which are embodied in your 29, March 5, 10 p.m.,55 I have made clear to Drummond and the British, French and Italian delegations. I am taking no further steps today awaiting instructions from you as to the idea suggested in my 54 as explained in my 56, March 6, 11 a.m. On reliable information, reflection and conversations including Yen and Olds with whom I have been in constant contact [I?] emphasize the thought (also brought out in Johnson’s view as expressed in your 25, March 1, midnight) of the danger of having negotiations treat of anything except the withdrawal Japanese troops and the reestablishment of peaceful conditions in the Shanghai area. The instructions which you have given to Johnson as conveyed in your 29, March 5, 10 p.m., make the situation eminently clear and raise the question again of whether in dealing with a small body there, that is his British, French, Italian and Japanese colleagues and the Nanking authorities, Johnson cannot [Page 523] keep this matter restricted better than we can in Geneva with the disadvantage of dealing with the representatives of 50-odd nations. If certain details arose outside the scope of their instructions which they might consider it necessary to discuss, they could request further instructions from their respective Governments. It was the foregoing which I had in mind when I conveyed to you the suggestion of allowing the agenda to be drawn up in Shanghai.
- Not printed; it quoted telegram No. 77, March 5, 9 p.m., to the Consul General at Shanghai, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 209.↩