500.A15A4 Steering Committee/12: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 26—10:50 p.m.]
52. The Bureau met this morning and took up question of organizing the work of the Conference. Without discussion they reverted to the procedure I had advocated in the meeting of February 23 as reported in telegram No. 45.46 It was decided without any initiative on my part that Beneš should draw up a synoptic analysis of the draft convention with all supplementary proposals inserted at the right places, to afford a basis for discussion by the General Commission and reference to the various committees organization in last sentence of my No. 50, February 25, 8 p.m., procedure seems thereby to have been brought back into normal channels.
The Chairman announced that the five committees would meet tomorrow morning to choose their chairmen and other officers. The analysis will be distributed Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. The Bureau will meet to adopt it on Tuesday and it is hoped that the General Commission can meet on Wednesday.
The Bureau then passed to consideration of the Conference Document 75 embodying Spanish proposals for cooperation of women’s international organizations.47 Madariaga proposed the creation of an advisory body on which all women’s organizations should have the right to sit as well as to have their representatives attend all public and private meetings as observers or experts. This was not directly commented on in the subsequent discussion. I said that some governments had considered that the most effective single step to utilize [Page 50] women’s interest in the work lay in the appointment of women delegates; that we had adopted this course with what we considered gratifying results; that we did not feel that this represented all that could be done along these lines but that we did not feel the document before us contained sufficient material on which to base a considered decision and that I thought we might after giving further thought to the matter eventually set up a small committee to consider how the great potential influence of women’s organizations as well as other organizations could best be utilized to promote the success of our work; that I thought we would be unwise to look on this question of according “recognition” to organizations of any sort; that our sole interest should lie in finding practical methods of focusing influence where it would do the most good in promoting the ends we seek. Although no decision was taken I gather that this idea was generally agreed to.
In confirmation of my telephone conversation this afternoon I have notified the Secretariat that our representation on the five committees above referred to will be as follows:
Political committee, Gibson; naval, Senator Swanson; military, Wilson; air, Davis; expenditure, Dr. Woolley.
We are required to send in one name for each committee but there will of course be such use of our personnel as is necessary to secure adequate support for whoever is sitting on the various committees.