Office of the Historian

500.A15A4 General Committee/163: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)

Washington, February 11, 1933—noon.

292. Your 531, February 10, 1 p.m.

1.
I attach high importance to your being able, for the next few weeks at least, to prevent the Conference raising the issue of any extension of the projected no-force affirmation to non-European countries, and in particular to the United States.
2.
The Pact of Paris28 is the cornerstone on which this Administration has rested its foreign policy, and there can be no doubt in the mind of any European statesman, either from our declarations or our attitude throughout the Far Eastern crisis, of our interpretation of the obligations agreed to under the Pact. You are well aware of the slow acceptance in this country of any new departure in our foreign relations. Public opinion has now fully accepted the Pact as a prime tenet of our policy, and the response here to its invocation in recent foreign disputes has been gratifying.
3.
Events during the past year have proved our willingness in practice to cooperate with other nations, coupled with a growing disinclination to commit ourselves before the event to any form of concerted action or consultation. The result is the building up of a tradition of cooperation, which while founded on the exercise of our independent judgment is in effect real. This cooperation rests on the implications of the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
4.
Any attempt to persuade us to reaffirm its principles in other terms, or to involve us in new contractual undertakings under the guise of security, would not only be a cross-current which would confuse public opinion in this country, but would inevitably weaken the prestige of the Pact.
5.
If the suggestion to extend the no-force affirmation to extra-European states comes from the small powers, I feel certain that an [Page 13] informal review of the Far Eastern crisis29 in private conversations with Benes30 or Motta31 or Politis32 would convince them that our policy, based on the Kellogg-Briand Pact, has been of greater value to the world’s peace structure than that of certain of the great Powers based on more detailed contractual undertakings.
6.
Cooperation between the United States and the League is now functioning so smoothly that I consider it of especial importance not to subject it to the slightest strain. I am apprehensive lest a discussion at this juncture at the Disarmament Conference as to the meaning of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, as to whether the no-force idea is an affirmation or a re-affirmation of its underlying principles, et cetera, might have repercussion on the discussions in the Committee of Nineteen.
7.
Of course, if the European states wish to make additional regional understandings, which would result in a further European appeasement, we should certainly interpose no objection. But any extension of the idea beyond Europe would risk complicating the situation here, and particularly so during the coming period of political readjustment. Accordingly, I rely on you and Wilson to exert every effort to prevent the subject being raised.
8.
If you find that by private conversations and persuasion you cannot convince the principal delegates of the wisdom of avoiding public discussion of this topic, please telegraph me and I shall reinforce your efforts with the appropriate Ambassadors or Ministers here.
Stimson
  1. Treaty for the Renunciation of War, signed at Paris, August 27, 1928, Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. i, p. 153.↩
  2. For correspondence relating to this phase of the Far Eastern crisis, see vol. iii, pp. 141 ff.↩
  3. Chairman of the Czech delegation to the General Commission; Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
  4. Chairman of the Swiss delegation to the General Commission.↩
  5. Member of the Greek delegation to the General Commission; Minister to France.↩