511.4A2A/987
The Counselor of the British Embassy (Butler) to Mr. Samuel Reber of the Division of European Affairs
Dear Mr. Reber: As you will be aware, in June three institutions at Princeton cabled a generous invitation to the Secretary General of the League of Nations at Geneva offering to provide room at Princeton for all the technical services of the League; these, I believe, included health, economics, finance and opium. Since then, according to our information, the Secretary General has agreed that Loveday, who is head of the economics section, should proceed to Princeton with certain members of his staff.
My Ambassador27 yesterday received two telegrams from the Foreign Office in London. One asked him to convey a message from Sir Atul Chatterjee, President of the Permanent Central Opium Board, to Mr. Herbert May, Vice President of the Board. It repeated to Mr. May the text of a telegram which Sir Atul had telegraphed to Felkin of the Opium Board in Geneva. The second telegram said that Lord [Page 327] Halifax28 would be grateful if Lord Lothian would ascertain informally from the State Department whether there would in fact be any objection to the Secretariat of the Permanent Central Opium Board coming to the United States.
Lord Halifax suggested that Lord Lothian should also let the State Department know informally that he was in favour of officials of the Supervisory Committee, as well as of the opium section of the League Secretariat, availing themselves of the Princeton invitation.
I should be very glad to get from you in due course any informal reactions of the State Department to the above, and would of course be very ready to come and talk to you about it at any time.
Yours sincerely,