793.94 Advisory Committee/11
Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hamilton)
The Chinese Minister called and inquired whether press reports to the effect that the American Government had accepted the League’s invitation to cooperate with the League’s Advisory Committee were true.
Mr. Hamilton replied that the Secretary at the press conference on February 27 had explained to the correspondents the difference between various committees of the League, pointing out that one committee had been provided for by the Assembly Report adopted on February 24 but that this committee did not come into existence or begin to function until both China and Japan had accepted the Assembly Report. With regard to the Advisory Committee, the Secretary explained that this Committee had been created by a resolution of the League Assembly adopted on February 24 to follow the situation and that the Committee was, by the terms of the Resolution creating it, to invite the United States and Russia to cooperate in its work. The Secretary called attention to the fact that the United States was not expected to become a member of the Committee but was merely to be invited to cooperate in the work of the Committee. The Secretary stated also that he was not attempting to speak for the new Administration but that so far as he was concerned, he would continue to cooperate, as in the past, with the League and its duly constituted bodies in exchanges of information and of views, of course with the same restrictions that have characterized American cooperation with the League as to the exercise by the United States of independent judgment with regard to any action proposed.
Mr. Hamilton informed the Chinese Minister that the Secretary’s comments to the press correspondents as outlined above were evidently the basis for the reports that the Minister had seen in the papers. Mr. Hamilton did not say whether a reply, either [Page 221] formal or informal, had as yet been made to the League’s invitation to the United States in reference to cooperating with the work of the Advisory Committee.