793.94/2855½
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation78
Secretary: Hello, is that you General? Has anything happened that you wanted to tell me? I am sending you a telegram79 in respect to an answer to your question about the Chinese counterproposal and the Council proposal. I think it will be a pretty strong one in favor of the League proposal and against the Chinese proposal because I think that the Council proposal is now in very good shape. I shall also send a message to Japan80 cautioning them that it will be absolutely necessary to have a suspension of hostilities and warning them against an expedition to Chin Chow. That is the substance of about all I can do. I want to hear what the situation is with you.
Dawes: There is no change whatever in the situation from that which I sent you at midnight last night. Briand late this afternoon is seeing Sze and Yoshizawa to try to get them together on the proposal of the League. The reports that I get are that Sze is absolutely … He has arranged later in the evening to see Sweetser. I will send that report of the meeting which Briand had with Yoshizawa and Sze later.
Secretary: I can not speak too strongly of the folly on the part of China in resisting such a proposition, it seems to me, as this one of the Council.
Dawes: Do you say that in your telegram to Sze?
Secretary: I will. The telegram is for you to pass on to Sze, or so much of it as you think wise in your discretion.
Dawes: Do you answer the telegram directly to Sze.
Secretary: No, I answer it to you for you to give as much to him as you think may be wise.
Dawes: Sze will send it right back to his Government.
Secretary: I shall also repeat it to Johnson, our Minister to China.81
Dawes: Mr. Secretary, may I tell Briand or Simon what I have done?
Secretary: That depends on the situation that you are in over there. We intend to back you up.
[Page 544]Dawes: I have reported to you everything that I have said to Simon or to Drummond. You know just how far I have gone with it.
Secretary: I have no objection to your telling Briand that I think the Council proposal as it now lies before me, is in good shape.
Dawes: If Briand knows that he will surely use it to make an announcement. It isn’t possible to keep anything of that sort confidential.
Secretary: Perhaps you had better not tell him until it gets to the others.
Dawes: Mr. Secretary they are trying in every way, rumors are going around one way and the other, that we have approved the Council’s proposition, which of course we have not done.
Secretary: Who is doing that, China?
Dawes: It is going around the Council table.
Secretary: Who is saying it, China?
Dawes: Sze came to see me and said that some of the clerks—not Briand, nor Simon nor Drummond, but some of the employees were saying that I had approved the Council’s proposition. They want to get that out; they want to have the United States … I simply said that the proposition had been submitted to you for your information only.
Secretary: I don’t think you had better tell Briand until it has gotten to Sze.
Dawes: I think it had better go to Sze.
Secretary: I would hold it back until they have it.
Dawes: It had better just go to Sze. He was up here asking me about it. I simply said that I had told them that I wanted to send it to you for your information and I can tell Sze that you sent this to me to read to him confidentially because that is where the influence is needed and where it will do good if any good can be done. Probably Sze can go ahead then.
Secretary: You had better wait until it gets to China first. You had better not say anything to the Council until it gets to China.
Dawes: Absolutely. Had I better say anything to them after I have communicated it to Sze?
Secretary: Not until you have passed it to Sze. Don’t say anything to Briand until you have gotten it to Sze.
Dawes: I wouldn’t do that anyway. Do you want me to say something to Briand after I have given it to Sze? I can see Sze any time.
Secretary: I think you can afterwards.
Dawes: I think I may afterwards. I had better say that it is an important decision from Paris which will go all over the press in the morning as the words from Briand.
[Page 545]Secretary: The point is that I don’t think anything had better be said until the form of the proposal is made public.
Dawes: Not until the form of the proposal is made public. That is a very wise decision.
Secretary: Don’t say anything until the proposal itself is public.
Dawes: There probably will not be another public meeting until Thursday.
Secretary: When will it be held?
Dawes: They are going to have another public meeting on Thursday. Mr. Secretary, I will explain the situation a little.
Secretary: The connection is poor I can not hear you.
Dawes: There is a little difficulty about how to handle this thing with Briand.
Secretary: I will try to send you this telegram tonight so you will get it tomorrow morning. Do not say anything to Briand until you have passed it on to Sze. That is understood. Then if the proposal of the Council remains in its present form as contained in your two cables to me, 779 and the one that amends it,82 I have no objection to your telling Briand that I think it is in good shape. That in general we approve of it, but I should rather have it public before my own approval is made public. That is all I want to say.
- Between Mr. Stimson in Washington and General Dawes in Paris, November 23, 1931, 3 p.m.; omissions in this memorandum are indicated in the original and apparently show poor telephone reception.↩
- See telegram No. 589, November 23, 6 p.m., p. 547.↩
- See telegrams No. 240 and No. 241 of November 23 to the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 48–49.↩
- See telegram No. 119, November 23, 6 p.m., to the Consul General at Nanking, p. 549.↩
- i. e., No. 780, November 22, midnight, p. 537.↩