500.A15a3/794b: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation (Stimson)
269. For your information the situation here is as follows:
- 1.
- With regard to a consultative pact, friends of the Administration in the Senate indicate an overwhelming Senate opposition. Intimations from Senators George and Swanson also indicate this to be true. They do not know the terms of such a pact, of course, but they contemplate that it is akin to the Pacific Pact. We are positive that a consultative pact in terms of the Pacific Pact would be impossible of ratification at present but if it were of a different nature and sufficiently limited there might be a change of opinion.
- 2.
- We are of the opinion that the British and French negotiations should be settled before any discussion of the text of the consultative pact is entered upon, although we do not wish our view on tactics to override your views. To put it another way, we should not engage in this problem until the British and French have settled their guarantees on one side and their tonnage on the other; for with the obvious leaks of every text and detail of your negotiations, the pact will become the battleground here and will overshadow the entire disarmament program. It is not desirable to have it develop unnecessarily to a serious question, for if the negotiations between Great Britain and France should fail it would unnecessarily consolidate opposition to any form of agreement. We take it that no such pact will be included in a three-power treaty. Moreover, we think it very desirable that the other delegations should present the form of the consultative clause and by stating your receptive position you have laid the groundwork for this already. They should be warned that nothing in the nature of the text of the Pacific Pact would be possible but this should be done at an appropriate time. It is [Page 89] suggested that you might consider repeating from the Kellogg Pact the two important paragraphs as a preamble to any other undertaking.
In our view, the text of the pact ought to come from some other governments and the reason is that if we presented the text the effort of the other delegations, undoubtedly, would be to put more teeth in it and we might fail on the question of words, the import of which would be almost impossible to establish clearly in the mind of the public.
On the other hand, should they present a form of pact of as moderate a basis and we proceeded to take any teeth out, our position would be much stronger here.
We have received your telegram No. 165, March 27. The above was written before its receipt, but we do not think position is changed.