Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1931, Volume I

500.A15a4/8

Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Western European Affairs (Marriner) of a Conversation With the British Ambassador (Lindsay)

[Washington,] January 10, 1931.

The British Ambassador called and left the attached memorandum⁸⁷ expressing the disappointment of Mr. Henderson⁸⁸ that the United States did not desire to cooperate with the President and Vice President of the forthcoming Disarmament Conference in the work of preparation.

The Ambassador said that he thought perhaps it was not fully understood that these personages were to serve not as representatives of their Governments but more in the quality of experts to plan the proper preparation and see that it was carried out before the meeting of the Conference. He said that it might be possible for the League to appoint some unofficial American citizen whose prestige would be great enough to bring about the same result as if it should be an appointment of the Government. I said that it would be extremely difficult to find a qualified person who would be willing to undertake such responsibility and he merely suggested in passing, by way of illustration, the name of Mr. Thomas Lamont.⁸⁹ He likewise suggested that possibly the use of the title “observer” might assist the Government to change its point of view on this question.

I told him that it was my understanding that the President and the Secretary were disturbed not about the names or titles as American opinion was fully sympathetic to cooperation in disarmament efforts, but their objections were based on the realities of the situation in that in a combination of two small European countries, one of them (Denmark), being totally disarmed, the position of the American working with them would be so prominent, and public opinion would so attach itself to him, that it would naturally involve this country in preparations and commit it to the success of a conference without the backing of the Great Powers which might, at the Conference itself, entirely disapprove or undo everything that had been previously arranged. I said that the London Conference had succeeded largely because the British and Americans had come to actual grips on the problems involved during the MacDonald visit⁹⁰ and that there seemed to be no possibility of this much more complicated one arriving at any result without similar action among the parties most heavily interested. Furthermore, the United States would, in any combination of the character suggested, be the sole representative of a Great Power, and as such, have the responsibility for the attitude of all the Great Powers vis-à-vis the point of view of the small ones, which, not being a Member of the League of Nations or immediately concerned in the European problem, would be extremely difficult.

The Ambassador asked me if I would take up with the Secretary the question of our attitude on the appointment of some unofficial person, who, as such, would of course, in no way, be able to commit the Government or predict or assure its ultimate stand on the questions involved.

J. Theodore Marriner

87. Infra.
88. Arthur Henderson, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
89. American banker; partner in J. P. Morgan & Co.
90. See Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. iii, pp. 1 ff.