Office of the Historian

511.1 C 1/11

The Minister in Switzerland (Gibson) to the Secretary of State

Berne, September 24, 1924.
[Received October 6.]
No. 142

Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s instruction No. 41, of August 5, 1924, enclosing a communication to the Secretary General of the League of Nations in reply to a note, dated June 10, 1924, concerning a plan for the issuance of certificates of identity to Armenian refugees in order that they might establish their identity and travel freely in pursuit of their normal occupations.

There is enclosed herewith the reply from the Secretary General of the League to the Department’s communication referred to above.

With reference to the second paragraph of the Department’s instruction under reference, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a letter, dated September 19, 1924,68 from Mr. Huntington Gilchrist, of the Secretariat of the League, stating that the Department’s communication to the Secretary General would be released to the press in Geneva on October tenth next. My telegram No. 86, of September 20, 1924, 12 a.m.,68 conveying this information to the Department, was based on this letter.

I have [etc.]

Hugh Gibson
[Enclosure]

The Secretary General of the League of Nations (Drummond) to the Acting Secretary of State

The Secretary-General of the League of Nations has the honour to acknowledge with thanks the communication of the Acting Secretary of State of the United States of America, dated August 5th, 1924, relative to the identity certificates for refugees prepared by Dr. Nansen, High Commissioner for Refugees.

Dr. Nansen, to whom this communication has been transmitted, desires to record his high appreciation of the recognition by the Government of the United States of the Identity Certificate for Russian Refugees and ventures to assume that as the Identity Certificate for the Armenian Refugees is to all intents and purposes an analogous [Page 89] document, the Government of the United States of America will find it possible to afford recognition to that document also.

Geneva, September 12, 1924.
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