t
secret, and in spite of the urgings of the other commissioners he
continued to adhere to that point of view, and my report has never
been made public until this moment.

Col. House asked me to prepare a declaration of policy, a statement
based on this proposal of the Soviet Government. It was to be an
ironclad declaration which we knew in advance would be accepted by the
Soviet Government if we made it, and he thought that the President and
Mr. Lloyd George would put it through.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Did you attend that meeting of the commission when
that report was considered by the American Commission?

Mr. BULLITT. I first handed each member of the commission my report. I
had appeared before them and discussed my mission for an entire day.
They sat in the morning and in the afternoon.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I wondered whether you were present when the
President thought it would be better not to give it out, not to make
it public.

Mr. BULLITT. No, sir; I was not. Then upon order of Col. House, to
whom the matter had been referred, I prepared this declaration of
policy. I prepared it in conjunction with Mr. Whitney Shepherdson, who
was Col. House's assistant secretary, and also versed in international
law. I do not know that this is of any importance, aside from the fact
that it is almost the only direct proposition to accept their proposal
which was prepared. Col. House took this and held it under advisement
and discussed it, I believe, with the President and other persons.

The CHAIRMAN. It had better be printed.

The document referred to is as follows:

A PROPOSED DECLARATION OF POLICY TO BE ISSUED IN THE NAME OF THE
ASSOCIATED GOVERNMENTS AND AN OFFER OF AN ARMISTICE

The representatives of the States assembled in conference at Paris
recently extended an invitation to the organized groups in Russia to
lay down their arms and to send delegates to Prince's Island. These
delegates were asked to "confer with the representatives of the
associated powers in the freest and frankest way, with a view to
ascertaining the wishes of all sections of the Russian people and
bringing about, if possible, some understanding and agreement by which
Russia may work out her own purposes and happy cooperative relations
may be established between her people and the other peoples of the
world." The truce of arms was not declared, and the meeting did not
take place.

The people of Russia are laboring to-day to establish the sys