Colonel House to Woodrow Wilson

From the German acceptance of your terms which we received yesterday, it looks as if the Peace Conference might be close upon us.

Germany seems so nearly in collapse that I cannot believe that it will be necessary for a peace conference to continue more than two and a half to three months. It looks as if the Allies might be able to lay down their own terms, and if Clemenceau will cooperate with us as closely as he did last year at the Inter-Allied Conference, it will greatly shorten the life of the congress. It merely needs a little organization and some understanding amongst the principals to have matters expedited in a way that is quite unusual at such gatherings.

I am enclosing you a list of people which I hope you will think well to have come over to advise when these several subjects come before the congress. It will strengthen the American position and facilitate the work of the commissioners to have such a staff, and it will leave the commissioners free to discuss fundamentals.

I do not give the personel of the Peace Inquiry as that is almost wholly composed of experts on technical subjects.

I am writing this on shipboard so it may return with this boat.

On Board U. S. S. Northern Pacific.October 22, 1918.