793.94 Advisory Committee/140: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Bucknell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:30 p.m.]
26. Department’s telegram No. 6, January 29, 2 [1] p.m., my telegram No. 23, January 29, 4 [7] p.m. Stevenson of the British delegation informed me today that the status of the Chinese Council resolution remained unchanged from yesterday. He went on to say that as he had pointed out in our last conversation (see my 22, January 29, 4 p.m.) the Chinese were rather unhappy over the amendment of the last paragraph of the resolution but had referred it to the Chinese Government from which no reply had yet been received. [Page 498] He hoped and expected that the Chinese would agree to it and would not be so “silly” as to attempt to press an appeal under article 17 which procedure in his opinion would be ill-advised. He continued that in the event a favorable Chinese reply was received in time another Council meeting would probably be held tomorrow afternoon. If the resolution was adopted by the Council he expected that the next step would be for Moscow, London, and Paris to consider what steps they were in a position to take which would most likely be followed by an approach to Washington through diplomatic channels to ascertain whether or not the American Government would join in such steps as had been regarded as possible by the other three governments.
Having previously discussed the Department’s 6, January 29, 2 [1] p.m., with the Minister in Bern, I took advantage of an opportunity during the course of my conversation with others to refer to the Secretary’s conversation with the Chinese Ambassador saying that the Secretary in referring to our attitude toward a further Nine Power Conference had said that he felt that the really important thing was whether any useful purpose would be served by further conferences or meetings and whether the interests of peace in general as well as the interests of China would be thus furthered. I added that the Secretary had pointed out that assembling of conferences or committees with achievement of nothing definite or constructive serves only to harm the cause of peace. Stevenson remarked that this appeared to be a remarkably sound view of the matter.
Eden left Geneva last night and Delbos this morning.
Repeated to London, Paris. Code copies to Berlin, Rome.