884.142/58: Telegram (part air)
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 19—3:05 p.m.]
605. 1. The International Committee of the Red Cross has announced the receipt of contributions for the Ethiopian Red Cross totaling 34,000 Swiss francs from Red Cross organizations in the United States, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, Rumania, Switzerland and Jugoslavia, the contribution of the American Red Cross being $5,381. They state that funds are being raised in Belgium, Denmark, India and Portugal and that Red Cross units are en route from Great Britain and Sweden and are about to leave the Netherlands and Norway.
2. The Swedish Red Cross is sending a hospital plane.
3. The Japanese Red Cross reported that it is sending “matériel sanitaire” for 10,000 wounded, no further details being known here.
[Page 896]4. I learn confidentially that the Committee has received a communication from the Italian Red Cross dated November 8 intimating that the organization known as “American Aid for Ethiopia” has not been recognized by the United States Government and is not entitled to recognition by the Italian military forces. It states that “if the American Aid for Ethiopia intends to limit its activity to the collection of funds, the Italian Red Cross can have no objection, but if such funds are intended to be used to send personnel and material until [under?] the emblem of the Red Cross, our society wishes to recall to the interested parties the exact observance of article[s] 10 and 11 of the Geneva Convention of 1906.99 Under the circumstances the request of the Ethiopian Red Cross for recognition of the American Aid for Ethiopia has no legal basis.”
In a reply drafted to this communication and awaiting signature by President Huber, the International Committee proposes to write as follows:
“It appears from confidential telegrams received by the League of Red Cross Societies from the American Red Cross that the activities of the so-called American Aid for Ethiopia Committee are at present limited to collecting funds and that it does not contemplate sending personnel to Ethiopia. Any American citizen proceeding to Ethiopia to offer services to the Ethiopian Red Cross and with the authorization of the American Government will have as sole protection his individual American passport. Under these conditions the ‘American Aid for Ethiopia’ does not seem to come within the category of formations contemplated in article[s] 10 and 11 of the Convention. Its recognition by the Ethiopian Government does not seem to have been accompanied by the required ‘previous consent’ of the American Government.”