Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/211



whose knowledge of the records is unequaled, said to me, the State Department had no secrets whatsoever, with the exception of personnel re- ports. We, too, however, can depart from a well- established tradition, as is shown by our diplo- matic history during the war. I do not believe it will ever be charged that in any matter big or little the American Government sought narrow, selfish advantages. Secrecy due to such motives, there was none. There was no American policy or enterprise that needed concealment, apart from military policies and strategy during a war. When I glanced over at the end of my mission in Peking the extra-confidential cable correspond- ence, I was inwardly amazed by the entire lack of anything that really needed concealing, in that closely guarded dossier.

Yet American diplomacy did during the war fall somewhat under the spell of the traditional meth- ods still in vogue in Europe. We were not a party to any secret engagements for the division of spoils after the war, although from the time of the peace conference on, the influence of the American Government was exercised mostly in se- cret, and the agreements subsidiary to the gen- eral settlement were secretly signed. These did not contain any apportionment of advantage to