711.60 c 12Anti-War/2: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Poland (Stetson)
32. Your No. 29, May 14, 7 p.m. You will please explain informally to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that I suggested that [Page 65] a treaty against war be signed in the first instance by the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan and no others solely because I felt that to enlarge field of formal negotiations at outset would cause real difficulties to emerge and would lessen the likelihood of prompt agreement. I am not by any means ignorant of the service that has been rendered by Poland to the cause of peace, and I should be highly gratified, of course, if Poland would indicate her approval of the form of treaty which this Government has proposed.
I have already recognized that the countries signatories of the Locarno treaties occupy a special position, and this Government is, naturally, entirely willing that all the parties to the Locarno treaties should become parties to the proposed anti-war treaty either by means of signature to it in the first instance or by immediate accession to it as soon as it comes into force as provided by article III of our proposed draft.
This Government has informed the Governments of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan that the United States would not offer any objection when and if such a suggestion as indicated in second paragraph were made, and in the address which I delivered before the American Society of International Law on April 28 I made the same statement. I wish you so to inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs; and you will add that if Government of Poland is disposed to accept the form of treaty which the Government of the United States has proposed and will indicate this disposition to me, I shall be quite happy to cooperate in any way I may to the end that Poland may become one of the treaty’s original signatories.
Repeat your No. 29 and this reply to Embassy, London, for the Ambassador’s information.