500.A15A4 Political/41: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 10—3:49 p.m.]
562. Political Commission this afternoon discussed definition of an aggressor on the basis of a Soviet proposal (Conference Document C G 38). I was reluctant to say anything on this subject but as the discussion advanced there was such an overwhelming expression of sentiment in favor of some definition of this character that I considered it necessary to raise certain questions and had less hesitation in so doing after the British delegate had given a clear statement as to his Government’s disinclination to accept a definition.
In substance I said56 that it seemed to us that the difficulty lay in the necessarily limitative nature of any definition. Thus there will always be ways of resorting to force which do not clearly come within the scope of any definition which we could now conceive and conversely it is inconceivable that we should be able to formulate an all inclusive definition which would give assurance that it could be relied upon to meet any situation which might arise. I pointed out that one could imagine certain of the acts listed as evidence of aggression which could be committed by the innocent party. I added that for practical reasons it might be wiser to approach the problem from a different angle and “examine the criteria which each government would find helpful in any given case in reaching a decision regarding aggression. Such a method would perhaps be calculated to clear our thought on this subject and would avoid the danger of binding future actions of which we cannot now see the causes and results”.
A Committee of Seventeen has been appointed on which we are represented to deal with this subject.
- Records of the Conference, Series D, vol. v, Minutes of the Political Commission, p. 55.↩