724.3415/4174: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 25—8:40 a.m.]
269. Immediately following meeting of the Sixth Committee described in the Consulate’s 268, September 25, 9 a.m. Avenol asked me to come to see him.
He referred to the statement I had made to him in line with the [Page 82] Department’s 96, September 21, 1 p.m. and said that the Brazilian Minister had made a statement to him in similar terms.
He said that at the end of last week it had been found impossible to form, as had been originally planned, a satisfactory League Commission regarding the Chaco composed chiefly of American states. It has then been decided to constitute a large committee similar to the Sino-Japanese Committee of nineteen composed of the Council states and certain interested Latin American League states.58 The resolution setting up this committee was to take note of the Buenos Aires mediation and the committee acting in theory under the conciliation procedure of paragraph 3 of article 15 would nevertheless not meet and would take no action until the end of a time set for the termination of the conciliation procedure probably November 1st. In other words the Buenos Aires mediation would be regarded as tantamount to League conciliation and the League would remain quiet during the period stated and in no way interfere with action at Buenos Aires. If the Buenos Aires mediation was not successful by November 1 the committee would meet about that date and proceed immediately to draw up a report under paragraph 4 of article 15. If during the period of the preparation of the report a settlement was effected elsewhere the report would not be acted upon. If however no set settlement was reached the report would be made to an extraordinary Assembly before December 9, the date upon which Bolivia made her appeal to the Assembly under article 15 being construed as the beginning of the “6 months’ period”.
Avenol then said that the declarations made by Bolivia in my telegram under reference entirely changed the situation. He stated that whatever motives might lie behind this action of Bolivia a formal statement of that import on the part of one of the disputants must be accepted as a technical notification of the termination of the Buenos Aires negotiations.
In this situation the present plan is immediately to set up a committee as described above which will at once proceed to the preparation of a report for presentation to the extraordinary Assembly. There may also be appointed a subcommittee of conciliation to act during the preparation of the report. It is not yet clear whether an effort will be made to obtain the participation of the United States and Brazil in such a committee.
I wish to emphasize that the foregoing is only Avenol’s view as to what action the Assembly will take. Avenol added, however, that he believed that no meeting of the Sixth Committee would be held for general discussion until the presentation to it of this plan.
- See Resolution Adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations on March 11, 1932, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 210.↩