500.A15A4/1928: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the American Delegate (Wilson)
332. For Davis. Your 227, May 17, 8 p.m., from Paris.5 The President is glad to confirm the authorization given you to make a statement whenever in your judgment it is advisable based on your cabled draft but so rephrased as to supplement the President’s proposal and conform to developments. As far as we can judge, the portion of your draft dealing with consultation, neutral rights and control is clear and does not require any change.
For your personal information only. In reply to specific questions, we informed the French Ambassador6 orally as follows:7
The President holds that the proposal which he made to Herriot8 concerning a unilateral declaration on our part regarding consultation and the renunciation (under given circumstances) of the exercise of neutral rights in return for adequate measures of disarmament still stands, and says that publicity will be given to it, either in Washington or in Geneva, at the proper time. In carrying out the four points of his suggested program, it is, of course, necessary to provide for machinery for consultation and inspection. The President said [Page 151] that he had not changed his views in any way, but as these are matters of details they had no place in his appeal to the nations.
With regard to the Pact of Nonaggression proposed by the President yesterday, the question of the mechanics by which it will be brought into being is of secondary importance and should be worked out in the future; the form it may eventually assume, whether as a measure of reinforcement to the Kellogg Pact or as an independent instrument, remains to be determined. The President’s proposal supplements the Kellogg Pact. In his opinion it strengthens it and certainly does not weaken it.