500.A15A4 Plenary Sessions/25: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)
14. Your 30, February 16, 11 p.m. We do not consider the present time opportune for us formally to revive the President’s “food ships” proposal, which was never officially submitted to any Government but merely put forth as a suggestion in the President’s Armistice Day Address in 1929. While you may, if it becomes necessary, express approval in principle of the substance of the Argentine proposal,43 we should prefer to continue the policy we held to during the London Naval Conference of not permitting the direct issues of naval limitation and reduction to become befogged as a result of the concurrent discussion of such complicating political issues as the freedom of the seas, contraband, et cetera.