859B.01/154
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The Danish Minister called at his request. He made some reference to the question of a protectorate over Greenland, to which I promptly replied that this Government has been opposing protectorates generally, principally because of the fact that nations engaged in military conquest are seizing smaller nations under the pretext that they are merely protecting them, but in fact such action is taken with the definite purpose of the permanent domination of the seized territory. Naturally, nations bent on conquest are looking for precedents established by those nations which criticize and condemn their course, and by precedent is not meant a bona fide precedent for seizure and occupation by force, but any kind of precedent that could be distorted into use for this latter purpose. The Minister said he perfectly understood.
He then brought up the question of a committee of Danish and American citizens to be organized by him for the purpose of collaborating and cooperating under his direction in looking after the conditions and welfare of the people in Greenland. I said that, of course, I assumed that he was not asking this Government for an opinion on that question, to which he replied that he was not, but was merely informing me of what he had in mind.