500.A15A4 Steering Committee/299: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 10—10:30 a.m.]
532. British proposal for procedure now before Bureau provides inter alia that “the Bureau shall fix for the future the maximum calibers of mobile land guns”.
British representative stated his Government was prepared to accept a limitation to about 105 millimeters for replacement or new construction. Similar statement was made by Simon25 in his speech of November 17th.26
The question then arises as to whether the American Government is willing to extend the attitude already taken and on which our instructions (your 211, September 29, 5 [4] p.m.27) are entirely clear by accepting an undertaking not to construct for the life of the treaty mobile artillery above 105 millimeters. We are not aware of the amount of replacement that might be necessary in 155 millimeters mobile guns during the life of the treaty and as to how such an undertaking would affect us. In considering it, however, it should be borne in mind that the adoption of the 105 figure for replacement purposes may be accompanied by an endeavor to provide for the immediate scrapping of all mobile artillery above 105 millimeters.
[Page 12]I do not anticipate that we would be alone in maintaining 155 level and therefore see no political embarrassment in a position whereby we would scrap or convert mobile guns above 155 and at the same time undertake not to build guns above 105 for the life of the treaty.
The foregoing considerations are, however, entirely different from the technical problem involved.
- Sir John Simon, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; member of the British delegation.↩
- Records of the Conference, Series C, Minutes of the Bureau, vol. i, pp. 89–94.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. i, p. 338.↩