500.A4002/1a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Harvey)
497. As the British Government has formally accepted, Department desires that you immediately sound the Foreign Office regarding the number of its commission. Presumably British Government will desire to include Dominion representatives and of course this would be very acceptable to the United States. President Harding [Page 61] is being urged to appoint a woman and a labor representative, but he is not now inclined to appoint representatives of any particular organization or class. We do not desire to attempt to impose restrictions upon representation of other Governments but we consider that the Governments will desire a substantial equality of representation and with this in view it would be desirable to limit each commission to five or six. We assume that in the case of the British Government six would give full opportunity for Dominion representation, which the United States does not desire to make difficult.
We believe that it would be better for each governmental commission to be composed of civilians and that Army and Navy representatives could well serve in an advisory capacity. To meet demands of organizations and to supply dignified positions without permitting direct participation in the Conference by membership on the governmental commission, it has been considered desirable to have an advisory, expert, or technical delegation to assist the real commission and that on this associate delegation would be representatives of the Army and Navy, finance, labor, women, etc. This would give complete expert assistance and yet would create a special body of dignity. Appointments could be made to it without making the appointees members of commission to sit in Conference. President Harding has already selected as members of the American Commission the Secretary of State and Senator Lodge and the others probably will be men who are prominent publicists including possibly some other Senator or Senators.
Ascertain confidentially and informally as soon as possible British Government’s views regarding (1) the number of commissioners; (2) exclusion or inclusion of Army and Navy representatives on the commission; and (3) appointment of associate or expert advisory delegation as above suggested.