703.94 Commission/737
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation74
Secretary: Hello, Ray.
Mr. Atherton: How do you do, Sir.
Secretary: I called you up to ask you to have a talk with Sir John Simon.
Atherton: Yes, sir.
Secretary: The basis on which I suggest it is your conference with Vansittart75 the other day in which I suggested the need of cooperation before this meeting. Also, in the recent correspondence between Norman Davis76 and Simon which you may have seen—have you seen those letters?77
Atherton: Yes, I have copies.
Secretary: In those letters Sir John stressed the importance of keeping together in that matter. Do you see?
Atherton: Yes, sir, quite.
Secretary: On that basis I have called you up to suggest that you have this conference with him, and I would like to have you make these points perfectly clear.
First, in regard to the meeting of the Committee of Nineteen. In the first place, our views are entirely unchanged. I say this because there is apparently an organized attempt to make it appear that our silence means that we have changed. That is not so at all. We have not thought it necessary to keep repeating ourselves because we have made our position so clear from the beginning. It is based upon our note of January 7 last year,78 the Borah letter,79 my speech of August80 and the Lytton report. And each of those seems to us to have made a successive substantiation of the position that we have taken, in the second place, there is no reason to anticipate a change hereafter. Do I make that clear?
Atherton: Quite clear, sir.
Secretary: I am not saying anything publicly about it, but I am telling you for your own information, and I am authorized to do that, and you can let it be known confidentially to the people where it may [Page 55] count. That is one place where I think the two administrations will be entirely in accord. Now, in the third place, make it clear to Simon that I appreciate the reasons which he set out in his letter to Davis for conciliation, but I assume that he probably agrees with me that that effort has failed and that now is the time to discuss the next situation. On the next situation I should be very glad of course to have him inform me of any change which he may make in his own views. My own position has not changed, and I want him to understand that I fully approve of the statement which Davis made in his letter to Simon. Do you understand?
Atherton: Yes, sir, quite.
Secretary: That position as stated there meets with my entire approval. Now will tell you my own feelings so you can state them to him, not to influence him except to let him know about that. He will remember that I joined in expressing approval of the League’s action a year ago in December in sending a commission to Manchuria. And on the League’s request I helped them select an American member. Now those findings have come in, and I have deemed them of the utmost importance, involving as they do, a unanimous report by the representatives of the five most important nations. Tell Sir John, in explanation of my views, that I regard that as a lawyer would regard the findings of fact by a Master. When the Court of Equity refers questions of fact to a Master, he makes a report of the findings, and then it is the action of the court to approve the findings, and I have assumed throughout that that would be substantially the course which the League would follow there. They have referred this question of fact to a commission, and like a Master, that commission unanimously found facts and reported them to the court (or to the League). The next appropriate action would be that those findings be approved. Then I accord fully with Davis’s position that the next step in logical order would be the application of the judgment of non-recognition applied to Manchukuo on the basis of those findings. Do you see?
Atherton: Yes, sir.
Secretary: That would be the logical and normal course of order. What follows from those facts by the various parties who have represented the court and who have sent out this inquiry is that they pass sentence upon the facts as found. I have just repeated that because I am a lawyer and Simon is a lawyer, and I assume our minds work rather the same way. Now I have gone through that situation in regard to the meeting of the Committee of Nineteen. I might add, just by way of parenthesis, that I have not myself been so disturbed by the various threats that have been floating around to the effect that Japan was in a very hysterical position and that anything might happen, because I remembered that a policy of that sort has been [Page 56] the diplomatic policy of Japan for many, many years, and I rather appraised it as that now, and it seems to be a rather effective one with some types of nations. But it is mainly put up for purposes of diplomacy.
Now I have reached the second point that I want to be put in consultation with Sir John, and that is the various steps that are happening in Shanhaikwan and Jehol, and all I want to say about that is that I should be very glad to be kept in touch with him and his views on those. I have not taken any action mainly because I have felt that our position has been made so perfectly clear that none was needed yet certainly. But my mind is open, and I am ready to confer on that subject and I would be very glad to have his views. That is my message to you this morning, and I should be very glad if you would have a conference with him and let me know. Is he going to Geneva?
Atherton: I telephoned him this morning, and his plans are not settled. He plans to go sometime next week. I have also been in touch with the Far Eastern Department of the Foreign Office this morning and Lindley has made no representations recently beyond pointing out that British interests have [been?] aroused [over?] Shanhaikwan, and now destruction by Japanese forces-
Secretary: Are you speaking about Lindley, the British Ambassador at Tokyo? It sounded like Lindsay.
Atherton: I said Lindley. That is the only late news they have at the Foreign Office. The Times had a long editorial on the Shanhaikwan situation, and in substance it says that the Powers should do their best to make it a local matter, but that if there is fighting south of the Great Wall in the neighborhood of Peking and Tientsin it would be a matter of great concern and current action by the Powers must be coordinated within the League.
Secretary: I recognize that, and that is one reason why I am calling you up, and I want Sir John to know it.
Atherton: That is the first statement the Times has had in its editorials since the Shanhaikwan incident.
Secretary: Have not the British taken some action? It was reported in the press here that they had at Shanhaikwan.
Atherton: British offices have been offered informally by the British naval officers, but beyond that we know nothing here.
Secretary: That offer was rejected.
Atherton: Yes, but it was reported this morning that they have made the offer again.
Secretary: I understood that they have made two. Have you any information yourself as yet bearing upon the situation in Geneva?
Atherton: No, sir, except that the pro-League people here have the impression that they are going to press Japan and absolutely [Page 57] apply all the final action under paragraph four of Article fifteen. They will go right ahead into that next week. That is the plan of the pro-League people here.
Secretary: I see. But you have heard nothing from the Foreign Office?
Atherton: None beyond what I have just mentioned.
Secretary: When you said pro-League people, did you mean all the League people in the Foreign Office?
Atherton: No, I mean the English people connected with the League and strong sympathizers here in touch with the League.
Secretary: But you have not heard anything from the Foreign Office itself?
Atherton: Just from League officials of British nationality.
Secretary: All right, that is all.
Atherton: Very good, sir. I will communicate with you as soon as possible.
- Between Mr. Stimson in Washington and Mr. Ray Atherton in London, January 13, 1933, 9:30 a.m.↩
- Sir Robert G. Vansittart, British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Norman H. Davis, U. S. delegate, General Disarmament Conference, Geneva.↩
- See telegram No. 720, December 14, 1932, 8 p.m., from the Ambassador in France, Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. iv, p. 420.↩
- Identic notes to Japan and China; see telegram No. 7, January 7, 1932, noon, to the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 76, and telegram No. 2, January 7, noon, to the Consul General at Nanking, Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. iii, p. 7.↩
- Dated February 23, 1932; see telegram No. 50, February 24, 2 p.m., to the Consul General at Shanghai, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 83.↩
- Address of August 8, 1932, Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. i, p. 575.↩