The Bullitt Mission to Russia Part 12

Please send k.o.c.k or other reliable person immediately to Petrograd to Schklovsky, minister of foreign affairs, with following message for Tchitcherin:

"Action leading to food relief via neutrals likely within week.--Bullitt."

AMMISSION.

The commission considered that matter, and this is the official minute of their meeting [reading]:

AMERICAN MISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE, [No. 211.] April 10, 1919.

To: The Commissioners, for action.

Subject: Telegram to Tchitcherin.

_Statement_.--Action by the council of four on the reply to Mr. Nansen was prevented yesterday by French objection to a minor clause in the President's letter. It is hoped that agreement in this matter may be reached to-day or to-morrow, but it is quite possible that agreement may not be reached for several days.

To-day, April 10, the pledge of the Soviet Government to accept a proposal of the sort outlined in its statement of March 14 expires. No indication has been given the Soviet Government that its statement was ever placed before the conference of Paris or that any change of policy in regard to Russia is contemplated. In view of the importance which the Soviet Government placed upon its statement, I fear that this silence and the pa.s.sing of April 10 will be interpreted as a definite rejection of the peace effort of the Soviet Government and that the Soviet Government will at once issue belligerent political statements and orders for attacks on all fronts, including Bessarabia and Archangel. It is certain that if the soviet troops should enter Bessarabia or should overcome the allied forces at Archangel, the difficulty of putting through the policy which is likely to be adopted within the next few days would be greatly increased. I feel that if the appended telegram should be sent at once to Tchitcherin, no large offensive movements by the soviet armies would be undertaken for another week, and no provocative political statements would be issued.

I therefore respectfully suggest that the appended telegram should be sent at once.

Respectfully submitted.

WILLIAM C. BULLITT.

APRIL 10, 1919.

At the meeting of the commissioners this morning the above memorandum was read in which Mr. Bullitt requested that a telegram be sent to the American consul at Helsingfors, instructing the latter to send a message through reliable sources to Tchitcherin respecting Mr.

Lansing's contemplated scheme for relief in Russia. After some discussion the commissioners redrafted the telegram in question to read as follows:

"Please send k.o.c.k or other reliable person immediately to Petrograd to Schklovsky, minister of foreign affairs, with following message for Tchitcherin, sent on my personal responsibility: 'Individuals of neutral States are considering organization for feeding Russia. Will perhaps decide something definite within a week.'--Bullitt."

CHRISTIAN A. HERTER, a.s.sistant to Mr. White.

I believe that telegram was dispatched. I do not know.

Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt, I want to ask you a question. You have told us that you went to Russia with instructions from the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, with a definition of the American policy by Mr.

House, with the approval of Lloyd George, who approved of your mission, of the purposes for which you were being sent. Now, tell us whether or not to your knowledge your report and the proposal of the Soviet Government was ever formally taken up by the peace conference and acted on?

Mr. BULLITT. It was never formally laid before the peace conference, which I believe met only six times during the course of the entire proceedings of what is called the peace conference.

LLOYD GEORGE DECEIVES PARLIAMENT

Senator KNOX. Did not Mr. Lloyd George in a speech to Parliament a.s.sert that he had never received the proposal with which you returned from Russia? Have you a copy of his speech?

Mr. BULLITT. About a week after I had handed to Mr. Lloyd George the official proposal, with my own hands, in the presence of three other persons, he made a speech before the British Parliament, and gave the British people to understand that he knew nothing whatever about any such proposition. It was a most egregious case of misleading the public, perhaps the boldest that I have ever known in my life. On the occasion of that statement of Mr. Lloyd George, I wrote the President.

I clipped his statement from a newspaper and sent it to the President, and I asked the President to inform me whether the statement of Mr.

Lloyd George was true or untrue. He was unable to answer, inasmuch as he would have had to reply on paper that Mr. Lloyd George had made an untrue statement. So flagrant was this that various members of the British mission called on me at the Crillon, a day or so later, and apologized for the Prime Minister's action in the case.

Senator KNOX. Have you a copy of Lloyd George's remarks in the Parliament?

Mr. BULLITT. I have a copy.

Senator KNOX. Suppose you read it?

Mr. BULLITT. It is as follows:

Mr. CLYNES. Before the right honorable gentleman comes to the next subject, can he make any statement on the approaches or representations alleged to have been made to his Government by persons acting on behalf of such government as there is in Central Russia?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. We have had no approaches at all except what have appeared in the papers.

Mr. CLYNES. I ask the question because it has been repeatedly alleged.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. We have had no approaches at all. Constantly there are men coming and going to Russia of all nationalities, and they always come back with their tales of Russia. But we have made no approach of any sort.

I have only heard reports of others having proposals which they a.s.sume have come from authentic quarters, but these have never been put before the peace conference by any member, and therefore we have not considered them.

I think I know what my right honorable friend refers to. There was some suggestion that a young American had come back from Russia with a communication. It is not for me to judge the value of this communication, but if the President of the United States had attached any value to it he would have brought it before the conference, and he certainly did not.

It was explained to me by the members of the British delegation who called on me, that the reason for this deception was that although when Lloyd George got back to London he intended to make a statement very favorable to peace with Russia, he found that Lord Northcliffe, acting through Mr. Wickham Steed, the editor of The Times, and Mr.

Winston Churchill, British secretary for war, had rigged the conservative majority of the House of Commons against him, and that they were ready to slay him then and there if he attempted to speak what was his own opinion at the moment on Russian policies.

MR. BULLITT RESIGNS

Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt, you resigned your relations with the State Department and the public service, did you not?

Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir.

Senator KNOX. When?

Mr. BULLITT. I resigned on May 17.

Senator KNOX. For what reason?

Mr. BULLITT. Well, I can explain that perhaps more briefly than in any other way by reading my letter of resignation to the President, which is brief.

Senator KNOX. Very well, we would like to hear it.

The CHAIRMAN. Before that letter is read, you did not see the President and had no knowledge of his att.i.tude in regard to your report?

Mr. BULLITT. None whatever, except as it was reported to me by Col.

House. Col. House, as I said before, reported to me that he thought in the first place that the President favored the peace proposal; in the second place, that the President could not turn his mind to it, because he was too occupied with Germany, and finally--well, really, I have no idea what was in the President's mind.