Office of the Historian

500.A15A4 Steering Committee/142: Telegram

The American Delegate (Wilson) to the Secretary of State

Geneva, November 14, 1932—6 p.m.
[Received November 14—2:40 p.m.]

452. Your 241, November 12, noon.

1.
Your telegram makes very clear the role we shall follow in the discussion of manufacture of and traffic in arms and your understanding in paragraph 2 is correct so far as the control provided in the draft convention of 1929 is concerned.
2.
The Committee’s preliminary report is now complete but contains no definite conclusions merely listing the different proposals submitted. Among these are the following which relate to control for both private and state manufacture.
(a)
—Control shall be exercised by the Permanent Disarmament Commission which shall be empowered to issue licenses to manufacturing firms.
(b)
—An effective system of international control should be established and
(c)
—That the number of factories to whom licenses may be issued will be limited presumably by international agreement.
It seems to us clear that we must oppose the foregoing three suggestions.
3.
As regards publicity a definite proposal has been submitted—that any system of publicity shall apply equally to material in stock, private and state, as well as to manufacture. In view of the position we have always taken with regard to material in stock we believe that a sympathetic attitude might be manifest toward this proposal and it may be considered useful to mention this position in discussions of the report in the Bureau.
4.
Proposals submitted concerning traffic in arms have not yet been worked out in any detail either in the report or during the Committee’s discussions. It has been generally recognized however that it will be necessary to modify the 1925 convention to take into account the changes in circumstances which have arisen since that date. The Department may therefore consider it preferable not to resubmit this convention for ratification until it becomes clearer what changes may be inserted as a result of the present study.
5.
It is of course axiomatic that we shall insist upon the same measures of control and publicity to be applied to state and private manufacture.
6.
If any of these considerations do not meet your views please let us know.
Wilson