793.94/2210
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the French Ambassador (Claudel), October 16, 1931, 4 p.m.
I called for the French Ambassador to come to my office. When he came I told him that I had an important message for him. I told him that the Council of the League of Nations had invited us to have a participant at the discussion of the question of the Kellogg Pact in Geneva; that we had accepted and Mr. Gilbert had taken his place. I told the Ambassador that I had talked with Mr. Gilbert on the telephone68 and had learned from him that it had been suggested there that the duty of organizing the invocation of the Kellogg Pact should be sent back here from Geneva to be done by us in Washington. I said that that was quite impossible; it would be better not to invoke the Kellogg Pact than to do it in that way. I told him that under any circumstances it was much better to have the work of communicating with the various signatories of the Kellogg Pact done from Geneva by the group of nations represented there than from Washington under the leadership of one nation, the United States. But I said that since the occurrences of yesterday, when Japan had protested against the invitation to us, it had become doubly impossible, and that we could not do it without inflaming Japan and without setting back the ultimate solution of this question. He said he understood the situation perfectly and agreed with me. He said that what was needed was tact; that Oriental nations liked to settle their problems by diplomacy and not by judicial proceedings, and that what was needed was time and a chance to cool down. I said I agreed perfectly with him and I told him how I had already prevented in the beginning of this matter the sending of a military mission by the League to Manchuria which would have inflamed Japan and set back the whole thing. He again expressed his entire agreement with what I had done.
[Page 212]I said that now I wanted him to communicate to M. Briand at once my views and to say that we could not take up the matter here; that it was better not to invoke the Pact than to have it done from Washington. I said that in Geneva they were all present and could discuss together, and the matter could be handled by united cooperation and the whole body of nations would be arrayed in favor of peace without any personal affront to either Japan or China. I said it was of great advantage too that it was under the leadership of M. Briand. He left, saying that he would send a telegram to Briand at once and send it to Geneva instead of Paris.