840.48 Refugees/384c: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland (Harrison)
26. Your despatch no. 371, May 23.15 Please transmit to the Secretary General of the League of Nations a note reading textually as follows:
“I have the honor to acknowledge on behalf of the Secretary of State of the United States of America, your note of May 21, 1938,15 with which you were good enough to transmit copies of two reports dealing with international assistance to refugees which were adopted by the Council of the League of Nations on May 14, 1938.16
I am instructed to express my Government’s appreciation for the information contained in your Note under reference and, at the same time, to inform you officially of the proposal which the President of the United States has made for convening an Intergovernmental Committee at Evian, France, on July 6, 1938 to consider certain aspects of the problem of political refugees from Germany including Austria. Up to the present time 27 governments have agreed to send representatives to this meeting.
[Page 750]My Government has suggested the following as the agenda for the meeting:
[Here follows text of the five numbered paragraphs quoted in Department’s circular telegram, supra.]
The American representative at the meeting is being instructed to propose at the opening session that Sir Neill Malcolm, High Commissioner for Refugees coming from Germany, be invited by the Intergovernmental Committee to attend its sessions. It has not been considered necessary to propose that a similar invitation be extended to the President of the International Office for Refugees, inasmuch as Judge Hansson, the head of that Office, will be present at the meeting as the representative of Norway.”