793.94 Advisory Committee/142: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva ( Bucknell ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 31—11:14 a.m.]
27. Quo Tai Chi and Wellington Koo53 informed me this morning that the amended Council resolution was unacceptable to their Government. They said that the first resolution was bad enough but that the second one was impossible; there would be another meeting this afternoon of the representatives of China, Great Britain, France and Soviet Russia. The Chinese were somewhat despondent about what could be accomplished and said that they were in a most difficult position and that perhaps it would be better to have no resolution [Page 499] at all if this was the best that could be obtained. The French, they said, had consistently tried to hold back the British from agreeing to any strong action saying in effect that if the British were involved in the Far East what would happen to poor France all by herself in the Mediterranean? They said it was evident that France was greatly concerned with regard to possible trouble with Italy.
The Chinese had been greatly concerned regarding press report from the United States to the effect that France, Great Britain, Soviet Russia and China were trying to cook up some program of furnishing money and munitions to China which these states would attempt to force upon the United States. These reports they described as completely without any foundation.
They said that the American attitude was very well known and that there was not and would not be any attempt to force the victim’s hand. They said that the British had consistently insisted that nothing be done to embarrass or displease the American Government. The Chinese also described as fantastic reports that the Council had consulted the United States Government with regard to the resolution and said that the facts of the case were that all of the four powers now holding discussions on the subject in Geneva had agreed that the United States Government should be kept fully advised of any developments here purely for their information and in the hope that we might be in a position to take some parallel or independent action along the lines of anything that was finally decided by the other three powers.
They asked me if I had received any reaction from my Government with regard to the Council resolution or other developments in Geneva. I then asked if they had had any report of the conversation that the Chinese Ambassador in Washington had with the Secretary of State on Saturday. They replied in the negative and I then explained that the Chinese Ambassador had asked the Secretary what our attitude would be toward a further Nine Power Treaty Conference and that the Secretary had replied that if there should be called a duly constituted meeting of the powers to the Nine Power Treaty the American Government would attend and if by way of illustration there should be called a meeting of the Advisory Committee the American Government would follow its previous practice. I explained that the Secretary had emphasized that the really important consideration in connection with matters of this sort was whether any useful purpose would be served by the calling of conferences or a meeting and whether the interests of peace in general as well as the interests of China would be furthered. I concluded that the Secretary had pointed out that assembling of conferences or committees with the achievement of nothing definite or constructive serves [Page 500] only to harm the cause of peace. They thanked me for telling them this and said that it seemed quite evident that under present circumstances the Secretary felt that it would be useless to have another meeting of the Nine Power Conference or a further meeting of the Committee of Twenty-three.
A Council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., today.
Repeated to London and Paris, mailed Berlin and Rome.
- Chinese Ambassadors in the United Kingdom and France, respectively.↩