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.