500.A15a4/10: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)92
11. I have today sent the informal note quoted below to Sir Ron-aid Lindsay.93 I should be glad if you found an occasion to discuss the substance of it with the Prime Minister as representing the American views on the cooperation which the British Government is requesting.
“My dear Mr. Ambassador: I fear from the substance of the memorandum which you left with Mr. Marriner on January 10, that Mr. Henderson misunderstands the reason why this Government is unwilling to cooperate in the suggested plan by having an American serve as Vice President for the coming Conference. It is not because we do not realize either the importance of that Conference or the importance of the most careful preparation for it. On the contrary, our objection is that we feel that the Conference is so important and will have such a vital effect upon the future of the world that the suggested arrangement for preparation before it meets is inadequate and will be futile.
We feel that such preparation must be made by direct negotiations between the nations which have something to demand and those which have something to yield in respect to land disarmament. America is not in that position. She has already disarmed and her army is insignificant in size.
We feel in such a situation that if we accepted the main responsibility of preparation it would do harm in two ways; first, it would [Page 482] lull into inaction others whose participation in that work is imperative and, second, it would leave on our shoulders the blame for the ultimate inevitable failure.
The Preparatory Commission has provided at length for setting forth of technical views, and has reached a measure of agreement as to methods, but the basic questions of principle and of the different Powers’ interpretation of their commitments for disarmament have not even been touched.
We feel that it will be difficult at best to produce a successful result in the Conference, but it will be wholly impossible unless the representatives of the leading Powers in Europe are willing themselves to meet or arrange a series of conversations beforehand for the purpose of preparation. Thus far there has been no intimation whatever of willingness on the part of France, Italy and Germany, the three Powers most directly interested in land disarmament, to get together and grapple with the fundamental questions which lie at the bottom of such disarmament. This was the course which the British Government and the American Government pursued in the preparation for the London Naval Conference where the issues were much simpler and fewer, and we feel that except for that previous preparation we might easily have failed in the Naval Conference. This kind of preparation cannot be done by third persons, but only by the great Powers themselves as principals, and until we see some expectation of that being done we are unwilling to participate in a preparation which we think will be wholly futile. We feel that the same dangers apply to unofficial representation by this country.
I am [etc.]”