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.