793.94/2785¾
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation55
Secretary: Hello, is that you General Dawes? General, I have cabled you some instructions on that subject of what you should do in regard to these meetings in a form which you can discuss with M. Briand.56 I have also telegraphed in a separate cable a suggested press statement that you might give out, either alone or as a joint statement with Briand.57 That last, however, is for your full discretion. We are not anxious here for any press statement.
Dawes: You have cabled another press statement which either I am to give out alone or with Briand?
Secretary: Yes, just as you like. You need not give it out at all unless you want to but the instructions which I sent you are of a nature for you to show to Briand in confidence just to make clear to him exactly our position. They do not seem to understand it quite as well as I would like to have them so I have sent that to you. Let me go on. I have talked this matter over with the President and he fully concurs with everything that I said to you about our position. As I told you our own attitude is limited by the treaties to which we are parties. Those treaties provide for only the sanction of public opinion and not for any sanctions by economic or military forces and those will be the guide of our own Government.
Dawes: I don’t get that last sentence.
Secretary: Those principles will guide our action as a government but if the others choose to go ahead under the League with their particular sanctions, we shall, of course, do nothing to oppose it or interfere with it.
Dawes: That is what you are expressing in this confidential statement for Briand——
Secretary: I am stating it for you and you can use your discretion in letting them know what our position is. But I don’t want to put that in writing. If the League goes ahead, what we shall do is to publish, of course, our notes and make our position perfectly clear after the League has acted—immediately after.
Dawes: Do I understand that you are publishing this note you are sending to me after the League has taken its action.
Secretary: No. No. I mean the notes between the United States and Japan.
Dawes: I understand.
[Page 500]Secretary: I mean for two months I have been keeping everything quiet in an effort to give the Japanese Government an opportunity to get the control of the Army. Our public opinion has not been educated on it at all but if there comes to be a show-down between the League and Japan, I shall make our position perfectly clear so that there will be no danger of it being misunderstood as not sympathetic with the League.
Dawes: Yes I understand. Mr. Secretary, let me understand are you cabling to me an instruction as to——
Secretary: Those instructions are merely as to sitting in the Council. I can read it to you if you like.
Dawes: That is what I mean. I want to know because of what has happened at this time. At 6:30 Sweetser came over from Briand’s office and said that he was not feeling well; that he expected to sit up until I came and suggested that I come at 11:00 o’clock tomorrow instead of 6:30 o’clock tonight.
Secretary: I think that is much better because by that time you will have my cables and there is no need of me reading them to you now.
Dawes: At nine o’clock the newspaper men come up here and they get everything from the Council chamber. It is a secret meeting but they always get it and they know that the matter of my being invited was being discussed and they know too that Briand was to see me about that tonight. I don’t want to tell them that I have instructions not to attend because that thing must not come until M. Briand has had a chance to talk to me and make a statement.
Secretary: You had better soft pedal it. The instructions are a sort of guide to you in your talk with Briand. They also are to constitute a record of our reasons in the future for history. The instructions are the record instructions; they are to make the record of this matter.
Dawes: This is what will happen with Briand as soon as he knows that I can not come to the meeting. He will probably make a statement as he did at the first meeting when he sent over a copy of what he was going to say and suggested to me that I make any changes I saw fit. What he said about what I said when I came here. He talked about representation and I talked about consultation and things like that.
A Japanese statement was designed to explain to the public that this form of negotiation … It stated that the invitation was extended a long time ago although the conditions were changed and that the United States Government had sent me here and that I felt that I could be on hand to talk independently with members of the League. It may be that he may want to make some sort of a statement to that effect.
[Page 501]Secretary: Let him make it, that is his business.
Dawes: I understand that I am not to make any public statement.
Secretary: We think here that it might be possible for you and Briand to make a joint statement which will show that there are no cross purposes between you but I leave that to you and you can use your discretion in that. I think that you will find the language of my suggested press statement very possibly useful to you. You can use that.
Dawes: You have made a suggestion as a press statement.
Secretary: I have sent you two cables to use in any way you like either as a press statement only or it could be modified into a joint statement between you and Briand.
Dawes: I understand that. It is a great relief.
Secretary: You will get two cables. One with the instructions which is not for publication but for use with Briand privately and the other is the suggested press statement which I spoke of.
Dawes: That is fine—that takes care of my troubles. When I went over to see Briand and told him I could not come——What he decided to do is to make a statement then about my attitude that he made at the beginning of the League and if invited I would be compelled to make a statement of this sort. He wants to get out that old statement. After you called me Mr. Sze called to see me. He is not going to do anything although he has talked to Briand. He has agreed to do just what I say about it and he is acting very nicely about it.
Secretary: That is Briand or Sze?
Dawes: Sze.
Secretary: Be careful with him.
Dawes: Matsudaira came in to see me an hour ago. He had received a telegram from the Japanese Government saying that they were sending a message to him about that recommendation. He doesn’t have it yet but the recommendation is to the effect that Japan consents to the League’s appointment of a commission to examine into the situation. In other words, the Japanese Government agreed that the same action can be taken now as the League proposed under Article 15.
Secretary: Will they stop fighting in the meanwhile?
Dawes: I don’t know about that.
Secretary: That isn’t much good unless they do that.
Dawes: I don’t think they will stop fighting. That is Briand’s idea. He will not consider the recommendation from Matsudaira but Matsudaira is very anxious. He says that if the League appoints a commission under Article 15, that his Government will … It is not going to do any good. He said he would be fearful of what would [Page 502] happen. It is so unsettled. He is going to make an effort to get Matsudaira’s proposal coupled with the proposition for an armistice and then carry it out. I have just had information as to the situation between Matsudaira and the League but we have nothing to do with that.
Secretary: I don’t think anything will come of these suggestions of Matsudaira. The thing has gone too far.
Dawes: I agree with you.
Secretary: And what I want you to understand is that if the League goes ahead, we expect not to interfere with it in any way and so far as the marshalling of public opinion can do to back it up by the public opinion of this country and it is the view of the President that if the League should act and we should publish our papers, the support of our public opinion would be overwhelming.
Dawes: I don’t get that.
Secretary: I say the President thinks that if the League should go ahead on this present situation and on the record of what the Japanese Army has done and we should publish what we know about it, the support of American public opinion would be overwhelming. Very strong.
Dawes: Yes. I am not going to tell the newspaper men anything at all. I will see them again after I have seen Briand.
Secretary: That is a good way.
- Between Mr. Stimson in Washington and General Dawes in Paris, November 19, 1931, 3:45 p.m.; omissions in this memorandum are indicated in the original and apparently show poor telephone reception.↩
- See telegram No. 575, November 19, 5 p.m., to the Chargé in France, p. 504.↩
- See telegram No. 576, November 19, 6 p.m., to the Chargé in France, p. 505.↩