500.A15A4/1277: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)
174. Your 315, 316 and 318, July 8 and 9. While the draft resolution satisfactorily accepts the underlying principles of the President’s plan, it does not seem to keep up an affirmative tone in regard to the ways and means of putting it into effect.
As we realize that the resolution in its final form must be the product of much negotiation, we shall suggest no substitute texts, but merely certain underlying considerations for your guidance. Every one of the suggestions put forward by Davis and reported in your 316 seems to us a decided improvement, (and as such are accepted by us) but we feel that the declaration should go yet further, both in proportion and in tone toward accepting at least in principle the concrete suggestions contained in the President’s proposal.
Specific Suggestions:
Section II, Air Armaments, Paragraph 3. We attach considerable importance to the omission of any reference to tonnage limitation after the word “bombardment”.
Paragraph 5. It is essential that reference to special international regime must make clear that this is a regional question in which we are not involved.
Section II, Land Armaments.
It seems to us highly desirable that the section on land armaments shall include as one of the definite agreements of the conference an acceptance of the principle of reduction in the defense component and if possible a recognition that the declaration of President Hoover furnishes a basis for achieving this end. In other words, it seems to us to make the resolution of the conference much more substantial if this important principle can be included as one of the items definitely agreed upon. Under Section 3 of the resolution the Bureau can be assigned the duty of presenting the details.
Section III. The whole resolution would seem to be strengthened if this were put in the form of instructions to the Bureau to arrive at agreements on these points and present specific recommendations rather than the somewhat nebulous character of its instructions as now worded.
We also feel that the vagueness of this section with respect to the date of meeting of the Bureau, the continuity of its sessions, etc., [Page 292] particularly when coupled with the absence of a specific date for the reconvening of the Conference, may give the public an impression that the adjournment is a disguised form of ending the Conference. We should welcome anything you can do toward making this section more concrete. Our preference would be to see a date fixed for reconvening the Conference sometime between 4 and 6 months hence.
Last paragraph of the resolution dealing with naval questions. We favor the idea of Davis’ suggested draft addition provided that he substitutes for the phrase reading “in view of the fact that the purposes of those declarations are in no way incompatible” the following phrase “in view of the fact that the aims and purposes of the two nations are in no way incompatible”. We want you to insist moreover on the inclusion of a sentence to the effect that naval reductions are understood to be contingent on substantially corresponding reductions in land armaments, in view of the fact that in this field of armaments material progress has already been made.
The foregoing suggestions represent what we hope you will be able to accomplish in the way of strengthening and improving the resolution and leave it to you, without further instructions, to attain the maximum possible in the circumstances.