811.113/222: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Delegate (Wilson)
67. Your 104, February 13, 4 p.m. The Secretary’s statement was not intended for publication. It was part of the notes taken with him to an executive session of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House on February 9 and was intended only as a reminder of the points to be covered in his testimony before that Committee in support of the Joint Resolution quoted in the second paragraph of Department’s 276, January 11, 5 p.m.18 At the request of the Chairman he left a copy with the Committee. It leaked to certain newspapers in which it was published on the following day. Therefore access to it was given to the press on the 11th.
The full text of the memorandum follows:
“The resolution authorizes the President to join other countries in a refusal to ship arms whenever the shipment would promote war. The argument is made that action taken under this would sacrifice American neutrality and so involve us. The fact is that the developments of the past few years show that there is little or no practical danger involved and that the discussion is based on almost medieval conditions which modern experience and realities have almost wholly replaced.
“The following points should be noted:
(1) The Joint Resolution of 1922 providing for an embargo in cases of domestic violence in this hemisphere and in China has been employed with great effect and negligible friction. Nearly all the opportunities for antagonistic sentiment for charges of non-neutrality and for the expression of that resentment against our commerce or other agencies of the American people occur as much in the field of civil strife within a country as they do in foreign wars. Our experience has shown that the refusal of the United States to allow munitions to revolutionists has never provoked serious resentment among the adherents of the revolutionaries and has substantially stabilized conditions in the smaller countries and prevented a number of incipient revolts. The moral approval of a policy against the shipment of munitions has been so marked that even where there has been sympathy with the revolting elements, the friction has been negligible.
(2) In the case of a war between two foreign countries the embargo would not, of course, be employed unless there was general cooperation and united opinion among the principal world powers who could supply munitions. If there was no developed public opinion or international attitude it is obvious that the employment of the measure by this country would be fruitless and improper. If there was public opinion and general world concern leading to cooperation one of two conditions would exist—(a) The world would cooperate in refusing [Page 362] supplies to both nations; this would certainly involve no breach of neutrality by the United States as the movement would be general and the nations united in a common front; (b) There might be a situation in which as a result of investigation and consultation on a large scale there was a clear definition agreed upon by all the co-operating powers that one side or the other was the aggressor.
“It is becoming evident in recent years that this condition is much easier to realize than used to be believed. The world-wide publicity afforded since the great war on every international incident and army movement, and the means of investigation by international commissions which is rapidly gaining ground, all show that there are situations today in which there can be a general verdict far beyond previous anticipation. The verdict of the League of Nations on this subject, for example, as shown by recent events, is a perfectly practicable procedure. If the League or any other comprehensive group of important states had mutually arrived at such a verdict, the participation of the United States in a general arms embargo would be not merely practical and sound, but practically necessary to preserve our national dignity and standing as a peaceful nation.
(3) Much of the old conception that neutrality as a possibility is gone in the modern world if large nations are involved in war. We were unable, in spite of the most earnest efforts, to maintain neutrality in the World War. Today nearly all of the world except the United States and Russia are members of the League of Nations and so closely bound by agreements in the Covenant and other treaties that real neutrality in a large-scale war is almost impossible. War today involves blockade and the commerce of the neutral is as much under fire as are the participants.
(4) The view that a neutral is obligated to sell arms to a belligerent is generally criticized by modern writers. Access is always unequal (as in the case of the Allies and Germany to the United States in the World War), and impartiality never really results. Disarmament agreements have already complicated the problem.
“There is a general feeling among writers on international law that the rule of impartiality in supplying arms, if it ever was generally accepted, is subject to criticism. There never was a right in the belligerent to buy arms.
“Hyde criticizes this view in International Law, page 868, and Oppenheim in his International Law says the sale of arms to a belligerent is dictated by greed and will disappear with better standards of public morality, page 350.”
- The second paragraph of Department’s 276 referred to the President’s message to Congress, January 10, 1933; for text of message, see Congressional Record, vol. 76, pt. 2, p. 1448.↩