811.113/202
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The British Ambassador4 called to read me a memorandum from his Government, which said that it had come to the notice of the British Government that the President was considering asking Congress to give the Executive authority to prevent the sale of arms to countries which were at war or in danger of war. The British [Page 357] Government feels that this move is for the purpose of dealing with the trouble in the Chaco;5 it has also learned that this country has been selling large quantities of arms and also aeroplanes to Bolivia. The British Government, if the President makes this proposal to Congress, would be very glad to cooperate with us in preventing the sale of arms to either Bolivia or Paraguay, not only by refusing licenses for such sale from Great Britain, but also by approaching the Italian and French Governments to get them to agree also not to sell.
I told the Ambassador that this was an exceedingly interesting suggestion, that I did not know whether the President had decided to make the suggestion to Congress, inasmuch as it would be taken by many people to be a mere prohibition of sale on the part of this country which would not help the situation since sales could be made from other countries. I said that, of course, the proposition now made by the British Government removed that particular angle to the matter. I told the Ambassador that I would be very glad to take it up with the President, through the Secretary, immediately and that it seemed to me that, under these circumstances, it might be possible to get promptly some kind of legislation which would help the situation although it was clear that, in asking for such legislation, the President could hardly say what the British Government had offered to do. The Ambassador said that this was the case, since if this announcement were made the French and Italians would look on the matter as another Anglo-Saxon common front.
The Ambassador asked whether Brazil, the Argentine and Chile were interested in the whole matter and I said they were, that it seemed possible that they might take a more vigorous interest and that there might be some method whereby they could be persuaded to restrict shipments of arms across their territory. I pointed out that this would be a very important part of any such plan since Japan might well be very glad to sell arms no matter what the other nations decided.
The Ambassador said that it would be difficult to do anything so far as Germany is concerned since Germany is supposed not to export arms in any case.
Sir Ronald Lindsay said that he would not send any telegram in the matter to his Government until he had heard further from me.
- Sir Ronald Lindsay.↩
- For correspondence concerning the Chaco dispute, see vol. iv, pp. 241 ff.↩