500.A15A4 General Committee/667: Telegram
The American Delegate (Wilson) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received November 22—2:33 a.m.]
794. My 791, November 20, 9 p.m. [1.] With the exception of Simon who left last night for London and Avenol who had departed for Rome to attend the funeral of Scialoja, the same group met in the office of the Secretary General under Henderson’s chairmanship at noon today. After an hour’s discussion the meeting was resumed at 5 o’clock this afternoon and continued until 7.
2. The discussion centered upon a draft of a proposed statement by Henderson at tomorrow’s meeting of the Bureau as originally submitted by him [as] follows:
“I have to report that being very much concerned with the present position of the Conference I invited into consultation the representatives of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and the officers of the Bureau. A full examination of the situation was made in which the difficulties and dangers were considered. There was a unanimous opinion expressed that a supreme effort shall be made to conclude a convention and different methods were explored with a view to achieving this object. No decisions were taken as it was fully appreciated that this function rested only with the Bureau or the General Commission.
3. It was decided that under present circumstances it was inadvisable for the President to convoke the General Commission for December 4 as it has to be remembered that the work of the Commission when it met would be the second reading of the draft convention. It was recognized that the existing divergence on several important political questions were too great to encourage any hope of a successful issue from a discussion in the General Commission. In consequence of this position it was suggested that the Bureau should consider the advisability of agreeing to a postponement of the General Commission until at or immediately after the January meeting of the Council of the League of Nations and at such a date as the President in consultation with the officers considers best for the purpose.
If this postponement were agreed to by the Bureau it would have to decide if it were necessary to convoke the General Commission for the purpose of fixing its own adjournment.
[Page 317]The Bureau must also consider what methods should be followed with a view to making progress on important questions not yet agreed upon. It has been suggested that the work of the Disarmament Conference would at this stage best be assisted by parallel and supplementary efforts between various states and the full use of diplomatic machinery. The hope has been expressed that the efforts shall be at once undertaken with energy with a view to advancing in every way possible the work which lies before the General Commission. It has also been suggested that governments should keep the President informed of their efforts and that they should report to him on the final result of those efforts. In order to avoid overlapping it should be considered whether the decision of the last meeting of the Bureau to appoint committees on effectives and supervision and to entrust several questions to rapporteurs should for the moment be continued”.
4. This statement was built upon the draft drawn up last night (see my 792, November 21, 8 p.m. [a.m.]29 which I shall call the Simon draft as it originated with him yesterday (see paragraph 8 of my 789, November 19, 11 p.m.30)
5. The morning conversation was principally concerned with the last sentence of the President’s statement which Boncour could not accept on the ground that it indicated a suspension of the work of the committee. Likewise it was objectionable to all as putting on the Bureau the whole matter of the continuation of the present work which would bring to light differences of method which would become serious political differences if debated in public. In these circumstances Henderson finally agreed to accept responsibility which he had previously been reluctant to do in the sense of paragraph (c) of the so-called draft.
6. The discussion this afternoon was with regard to the precise wording of this substitution for the last sentence. Soragna felt he could agree to this exactly as it appeared in the Simon draft. Boncour on the other hand was unable to do so feeling that the committees were not sufficiently in the picture.
7. Henderson then interpreted the way in which he would carry out any mandate such as paragraph (d), namely, that he would ask the committees to slow up somewhat in their work; that they should go on for a couple of weeks and then stop for the Christmas holidays and should not resume this work thereafter until he could determine how matters were proceeding. Meanwhile, the chairman of the two committees, who are rapporteurs for their subjects as well, could proceed with the work. In order to give more comfort to Boncour the last sentence of the President’s statement now founded on paragraph (e) [Page 318] of Simon draft was amended to read that “the President in consultation with the officers and chairmen of the committees shall advise how far the work of the committees shall be carried on in the meantime”.
8. The question was then debated at some length as to what would happen if questions were asked in the Bureau as Boncour felt most likely. He was agreeable to the amended text of the President’s statement if Henderson were ready to give the Bureau his interpretation as set forth above.
9. This was difficult for Soragna. It subtracted greatly from the neutral character of the formula as the President would be limited in his application of it by a publicly expressed interpretation of this character.
10. Boncour then stated that he had come here with the mandate of his Government to endeavor to have the work of the committees continue. It was also his profound conviction that to do otherwise would be most unfortunate.
11. After much discussion it resulted that the President should make the statement as amended and all would hope that no questions put to the Bureau would force Boncour and Soragna to express opposing opinions as they frankly said they would be compelled to do in such circumstances with regard to the desirability of the continuation of the present form of the work.
12. There was no discussion as to the ways and means of carrying on the parallel and supplementary political and diplomatic negotiations although Henderson made a moving appeal against wasting time on differences of views regarding the relatively less important questions in regard to continuation of committee work when no consideration had been given to the greatly more important matter of the parallel negotiations.
13. The meeting ended with discussions regarding the necessity for calling the General Commission. It was decided that this was not necessary if the Bureau were unanimous on the subject tomorrow. It was, therefore, agreed to substitute for the penultimate paragraph of the proposed statement by the President quoted above the following:
14. “If this postponement were agreed to by the Bureau it would not seem necessary to convoke the General Commission for confirmation as the General Commission had agreed on October 26th that if it was found impossible to distribute the new text in time the President would consult the Bureau as to the advisability of further postponing the meeting of the Commission”.
15. I have presented the foregoing at some length because after these 2 days of discussion the French and the Italians remain in fundamental disagreement with regard to the method of continuing the [Page 319] work. If questions are put in the Bureau31 it seems inevitable that there will be a head-on collision between the French and the Italians on this point with what unfortunate results it remains to be seen.
16. I took little part in the discussion today in view of the turn it took as between the French and Italians. It was clear that Boncour was definitely opposed to giving the Germans the satisfaction of thinking that their withdrawal was the determining factor in the method of procedure at the Conference. On the other hand Soragna seemed convinced that continuation of the work in the present form would have a most undesirable and disadvantageous reaction on the parallel and supplementary negotiations among the various powers on which Italy relied for bringing Germany back to disarmament cooperation the sine qua non for the successful achievement of a treaty.