500.A14A4 General Committee/358: Telegram
The American Delegate (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 12—1:55 a.m.]
638. 1. It is impossible to give a satisfactory consecutive account of today’s events which included numerous private conversations, and [Page 137] two lengthy sittings of the five, with Henderson, one before and one after dinner.
2. It finally evolved tonight that in Nadolny’s conception point 3 of the memorandum by which Eden reduced Nadolny’s attitude to writing (my 636, May 10, 10 p.m.) is contingent on the acceptance of points 1, 2 and 4 by the other powers and that Nadolny is unwilling even to declare his acceptance of the principle of the standardization of continental European armies on the basis of short term service unless at the same time a measure of acquiescence is given by the other powers to all four points of the memorandum. This of course represented a position impossible of acceptance and we therefore found ourselves back to exactly the position we were at the last meeting of the Bureau (my 631, May 8, 4 p.m.). Nadolny’s attitude in the afternoon conversations was conciliatory and he was obviously searching in every way to reach agreement. In the evening, on the contrary, his attitude was so changed that I cannot explain it otherwise than by his having received telephone instructions between the meetings.
3. The Bureau is fixed for tomorrow afternoon and there are two motions before it, one by Eden to give second reading to part II, section I, chapters I, II and III (effectives), and the other by Nadolny to proceed with the first reading of the rest of part II beginning with article 19, section II, chapter I (land armaments). These motions will come up for discussion and vote.
4. I have constantly borne in mind the desire of the President that we should continue with a first reading of the British plan (Department’s 329, May 8, 7 p.m.) and have lost no opportunity to try to work out a basis on which such a program would be possible. Under the present conditions however the British, who are mainly responsible for the progress of their own plan, are convinced that no useful purpose can be served by entering into discussions of material until further elucidation of Germany’s position towards the question of effectives has been obtained. Furthermore, Nadolny himself [apparent omission] so unreasonable and has made his position so untenable that Davis, whom I have just consulted, and I are of the opinion that I must vote for Eden’s motion in the Bureau tomorrow.
5. Davis considers it highly important that he has time to endeavor to arrange the presence here of some of the chief delegates in order that an attempt may be made to solve this very critical situation in Geneva. I shall so inform Henderson tomorrow.
6. In the course of the discussions this afternoon Nadolny made it plain to us that his own conception at least of point 4 was that of “sample types of no military importance”. After elucidating his position he said that he knew Eden’s views but would like to have the views of the others present. Soragna stated that his Government while definitely opposed to German rearmament considered rearmament as [Page 138] meaning giving to Germany weapons which they did not now possess in sufficient quantities to represent a military value. They did not consider it rearmament if merely sample types were given for the satisfaction of public opinion in Germany although the Italian Government would use all its influence to reduce these sample types to the very minimum. I stated that my Government was definitely opposed to Germany’s rearmament; that I had not worked out in detail with my Government how this applied in every specific instance, nevertheless I knew that my Government felt very strongly on this point and my impression was that it would oppose any measure of rearmament. (As to the complexities involved see Davis’ 616, April 28, 4 p.m.86). Massigli stated briefly and categorically that France was opposed to Germany being permitted to have any types of weapons which were precluded by the Treaty of Versailles. I know from other conversations that Eden’s position is that no qualitative rearmament should be permitted. By this they mean no airplanes, no 155 mm. guns, no submarines, no capital ships. Eden admits that the British plan is loose in that in present reading it permits rearmament on tanks and believes that some amendment might be found to tighten this up.
Repeated to Davis.