Part 7
1. The life of Russia depends upon its railroads; and your demand for control of transportation by the commission can hardly be accepted by the Soviet Government which knows that plots for the destruction of railroad bridges were hatched in the American consulate in Moscow. You are asking the Soviet Government to put its head in the lion's mouth. It will not accept. You must moderate your phrases.
2. When you speak of the "cessation of hostilities by Russian troops," you fail to speak of hostilities by troops of the allied and associated Governments, a number of whom, you may recall, have invaded Russia. Furthermore, your phrase does not cover Finns, Esthonians, Letts, Poles, etc. In addition, you say absolutely nothing about the withdrawal of the troops of the allied and associated Governments from Russian territory. And, most important, you fail to say that troops and military supplies will cease to be sent into the territory of the former Russian Empire. You thereby go a long way toward proving Trotsky's thesis: That any armistice will simply be used by the Allies as a period in which to supply tanks, aeroplanes, gas shells, liquid fire, etc., to the various antisoviet governments. As it stands, your armistice proposal is absolutely unfair, and I am sure that it will not be accepted by the Soviet Government.
Very respectfully, yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
Senator NEW. Otherwise you had no fault to find with it?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes. The morning after Col. House had told me he wished to submit this proposition to his international law experts, I came as usual to his office about 9.40, and Mr. Auchincloss was on his way to the President with his proposal, the Auchincloss-Miller proposal, as Col. House's proposal. But I got that stopped. I went in to Col. House, and Col. House told Mr. Auchincloss not to take it up to the President, and asked me if I could doctor up the reply of Mr. Auchincloss and Mr. Miller to the Nansen letter so that it might possibly be acceptable to the Soviet Government. I thereupon rewrote the Auchincloss-Miller letter, but I was forced to stick very closely to the text. I was told that I could cut things out if I wished to, but to stick very closely to the text, which I did. I drew this redraft of their letter, under protest at the whole business. My redraft of their letter was finally the basis of the reply of the four to Nansen. I have both these documents here, my reply--and the four took that reply--and with the changes----
The CHAIRMAN. What four--the successors of the ten?
Mr. BULLITT. The successors of the 10, sir, took the reply------
The CHAIRMAN. Who were the four at that moment?
Mr. BULLITT. M. Orlando, Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and the President. This extremely mild proposition, which really had almost no chance of life, was, you will see, in no sense a reply to these proposals of the Soviet Government. This is my attempt to doctor up the Auchincloss-Miller proposition. In spite of every effort I could make to obtain definite action on it, the reply was made to me that this reply to the Nansen proposal would be a sufficient reply to that proposal of the Soviet Government. [Reading:]
DEAR SIR: The misery and suffering in Russia described in your letter of April 3 appeals to the sympathies of all peoples. It is shocking to humanity that millions of men, women, and children lack the food and the necessities, which make life endurable.
The Governments and peoples whom we represent would be glad to cooperate, without thought of political, military, or financial advantage, in any proposal which would relieve this situation in Russia. It seems to us that such a commission as you propose would offer a practical means of achieving the beneficent results you have in view, and could not, either in its conception or its operation, be considered as having any other aim than the "humanitarian purpose of saving life."
There are great difficulties to be overcome, political difficulties, owing to the existing situation in Russia, and difficulties of supply and transport. But if the existing local governments of Russia are as willing as the Governments and the peoples whom we represent to see succor and relief given to the stricken peoples of Russia, no political obstacle will remain. There will remain, however, the difficulties of supply and transport, which we have mentioned, and also the problem of distribution in Russia itself. The problem of supply we can ourselves hope to solve, in connection with the advice and cooperation of such a commission as you propose. The problem of transport of supplies to Russia we can hope to meet with the assistance of your own and other neutral Governments. The problem of transport in Russia and of distribution can be solved only by the people of Russia themselves, with the assistance, advice, and supervision of your commission.
Subject to such supervision, the problem of distribution should be solely under the control of the people of Russia themselves. The people in each locality should be given, as under the regime of the Belgian Relief Commission, the fullest opportunity to advise your commission upon the methods and the personnel by which their community is to be relieved. In no other circumstances could it be believed that the purpose of this relief was humanitarian, and not political, under no other conditions could it be certain that the hungry would be fed.
That such a course would involve cessation of all hostilities within the territory of the former Russian Empire is obvious. And the cessation of hostilities would, necessarily, involve a complete suspension of the transfer of troops and military material of all sorts to and within these territories. Indeed, relief to Russia which did not mean a return to a state of peace would be futile, and would be impossible to consider.
Under such conditions as we have outlined we believe that your plan could be successfully carried into effect, and we should be prepared to give it our full support.
REPLY OF PRESIDENT WILSON, PREMIERS CLEMENCEAU, LLOYD GEORGE, AND ORLANDO, TO DR. NANSEN, APRIL 17, 1919
DEAR SIR: The misery and suffering in Russia described in your letter of April 3 appeals to the sympathies of all peoples. It is shocking to humanity that millions of men, women, and children lack the food and the necessities which make life endurable.
The Governments and peoples whom we represent would be glad to cooperate, without thought of political, military, or financial advantage, in any proposal which would relieve this situation in Russia. It seems to us that such a commission as you propose would offer a practical means of achieving the beneficent results you have in view, and could not, either in its conception or its operation, be considered as having any other aim than the "humanitarian purpose of saving life."
There are great difficulties to be overcome, political difficulties, owing to the existing situation in Russia, and difficulties of supply and transport. But if the existing local governments of Russia are as willing as the Governments and people whom we represent to see succor and relief given to the stricken peoples of Russia, no political obstacle will remain.
There will remain, however, the difficulties of supply, finance, and transport which we have mentioned? and also the problem of distribution in Russia itself. The problem of supply we can ourselves hope to solve, in connection with the advice and cooperation of such a commission as you propose. The problem of finance would seem to us to fall upon the Russian authorities. The problem of transport of supplies to Russia we can hope to meet with the assistance of your own and other neutral governments whose interests should be as great as our own and whose losses have been far less. The problems of transport in Russia and of distribution can be solved only by the people of Russia themselves, with the assistance, advice, and supervision of your commission.
Subject to your supervision, the problem of distribution should be solely under the control of the people of Russia themselves. The people in each locality should be given, as under the regime of the Belgian Relief Commission, the fullest opportunity to advise your commission upon the methods and the personnel by which their community is to be relieved. In no other circumstances could it be believed that the purpose of this relief was humanitarian, and not political; under no other condition could it be certain that the hungry would be fed.
That such a course would involve cessation of all hostilities within definitive lines in the territory of Russia is obvious. And the cessation of hostilities would, necessarily, involve a complete suspension of the transfer of troops and military material of all sorts to and within Russian territory. Indeed, relief to Russia which did not mean a return to a state of peace would be futile and would be impossible to consider.
Under such conditions as we have outlined, we believe that your plan could be successfully carried into effect, and we should be prepared to give it our full support.
V.E. ORLANDO. D. LLOYD GEORGE. WOODROW WILSON. G. CLEMENCEAU.
Senator KNOX. I want the reply of Auchincloss to Nansen to go into the record.
The CHAIRMAN. Let all that correspondence be printed in the record.
Senator KNOX. Dr. Nansen's proposition, and then the reply,
(The letters referred to are inserted above.)
Mr. BULLITT. The Nansen letter was written in Mr. Hoover's office. Nansen made the proposition. I wrote the original of a reply to Dr. Nansen, which I believe would have led to peace. Col. House indicated his approval of it, but wished to have it considered from the international legal standpoint, which was then done by Mr. Auchincloss and Mr. Miller, who proposed a reply that had no resemblance to my proposal. I then objected to that as it was on its way to the President. It was not sent to the President, and I was ordered to try to doctor it up. I attempted to doctor it up and produced a doctored version which was finally made the basis of the reply, with the change of two or three words which made it even worse and even more indefinite, so that the Soviet Government could not possibly conceive it as a genuine peace proposition. It left the whole thing in the air.
Senator KNOX. We would like to have you see that these documents to which you have just now referred are inserted in the record in the sequence in which you have named them.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, I shall be at the service of the committee in that regard.
Senator HARDING. Lest I missed something while I was out of the room I am exceedingly curious to know why the Soviet proposal was not given favorable consideration.
Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt has stated that.
KOLCHAK'S ADVANCE CAUSES REJECTION OF PEACE PROPOSAL
Mr. BULLITT. The principal reason was entirely different. The fact was that just at this moment, when this proposal was under consideration, Kolchak made a 100-mile advance. There was a revolt of peasants in a district of Russia which entirely cut off supplies from the Bolshevik army operating against Kolchak. Kolchak made a 100-mile advance, and immediately the entire press of Paris was roaring and screaming on the subject, announcing that Kolchak would be in Moscow within two weeks; and therefore everyone in Paris, including, I regret to say members of the American commission, began to grow very lukewarm about peace in Russia, because they thought Kolchak would arrive in Moscow and wipe out the Soviet Government.
Senator KNOX. And the proposal which you brought back from Russia, that is the Soviet proposal, was abandoned and dropped, after this last document to which you have just referred.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; it was. May I say this, that April 10 was the final date when their proposition was open. I had attempted every day and almost every night to obtain a reply to it. I finally requested the commission to send the following telegram to Tchitcherin.
I proposed to send this telegram to the American consul at Helsingfors [reading]:
APRIL 10, 1919. AMERICAN CONSUL, Helsingfors:
Please send Kock 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 passing 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 Kock 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, Assistant 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 assert 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 assume 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 attitude 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.
Senator KNOX. There never was another effort to secure an audience with the President for you after those first two that you say Col. House made?
Mr. BULLITT. No; not at all. Meetings with the President were always arranged through Col. House.
In my letter of resignation to the President, which was dated May 17, 1919, I said:
MAY 17, 1919.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have submitted to-day to the Secretary of State my resignation as an assistant in the Department of State, attaché to the American commission to negotiate peace. I was one of the millions who trusted confidently and implicitly in your leadership and believed that you would take nothing less than "a permanent peace" based upon "unselfish and unbiased justice." But our Government has consented now to deliver the suffering peoples of the world to new oppressions, subjections, and dismemberments--a new century of war. And I can convince myself no longer that effective labor for "a new world order" is possible as a servant of this Government.
Russia, "the acid test of good will," for me as for you, has not even been understood. Unjust decisions of the conference in regard to Shantung, the Tyrol, Thrace, Hungary, East Prussia, Danzig, the Saar Valley, and the abandonment of the principle of the freedom of the seas make new international conflicts certain. It is my conviction that the present league of nations will be powerless-to prevent these wars, and that the United States will be involved in them by the obligations undertaken in the covenant of the league and in the special understanding with France. Therefore the duty of the Government of the United States to its own people and to mankind is to refuse to sign or ratify this unjust treaty, to refuse to guarantee its settlements by entering the league of nations, to refuse to entangle the United States further by the understanding with France.
That you personally opposed most of the unjust settlements, and that you accepted them only under great pressure, is well known. Nevertheless, it is my conviction that if you had made your fight in the open, instead of behind closed doors, you would have carried with you the public opinion of the world, which was yours; you would have been able to resist the pressure and might have established the "new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice" of which you used to speak. I am sorry that you did not fight our fight to the finish and that you had so little faith in the millions of men, like myself, in every nation who had faith in you.
Very sincerely, yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
To the honorable WOODROW WILSON, President of the United States.
Senator KNOX. Did you ever get a reply to that letter?
Mr. BULLITT. I did not, sir. The only intimation I had in regard to it was that Mr. Close, secretary of the President, with whom I was lunching, said to me that the President had read my letter and had said that he would not reply. In connection with that I wrote Col. House a letter at the same time as follows: