511.3B1/1: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
3469. Your 4198 September 13th, midnight.58
The text of the Arms Traffic Convention has been received and carefully examined by the Department. With reference to the protocol quoted in your message under acknowledgment, it is considered necessary to inform you that this Government cannot regard itself as bound by the terms thereof which are contrary to the existing laws of the United States.
While the Department is in sympathy with the measures proposed in the Arms Traffic Convention it is unable to regard the Government as bound by the protocol but notwithstanding that fact it believes that the present restrictions of the War Trade Board on the exportation of arms and munitions of war to certain countries will suffice for the time being to prevent any material departure from the intent and spirit of the Arms Traffic Convention which it interprets as the desire of the signatories first to prevent any dispersal of the large surplus of war material to regions where it might ultimately be used to the detriment of the signatory powers and second to regulate the arms traffic in the districts described in Section 6, Chapter II of the Convention.
The Department believes that necessary steps should be taken by you to acquaint the signatories of the Convention with its position as set forth in the preceding paragraph and would like your opinion on this point.
- Not printed.↩