550.S1 Washington/359
Memorandum by the Chairman of the American Delegation to the Disarmament Conference (Davis)29
The Italian Ambassador said that he had asked Mr. Marriner to arrange an interview for him in order to straighten out one or two points resulting from the conversation which Mr. Davis had had with Ambassador Grandi in London. He said that he wanted to assure Mr. Davis that there was absolutely no intention in the project of the Four Power Pact to indicate a united front against the United States or any other Powers, but that collaboration by the United States for the purposes of the Four Power Pact did not seem practicable in view of the fact that it was destined principally to assure the peace of Europe along the lines of Locarno and was intended to be within the framework of the pact.
Mr. Davis said that he feared Grandi must have misunderstood his remarks since he had given no impression that America felt that the project of the Four-Power Pact was aimed against it and certainly understood perfectly in so far as the political purposes of the Four Power Pact were concerned there was no possibility of American association. Mr. Davis continued by saying that possibly American public opinion might have been disturbed by the clause in the original draft of common action in colonial matters, which indicated possible common interests outside of the purely European sphere.
The Ambassador replied that this clause had been taken out after the very first draft and on looking at the second draft the Ambassador’s impression was confirmed.
The Ambassador then said that Mussolini wanted him to assure Mr. Davis that he (Mussolini) was going to take the first occasion to state [Page 404] publicly the fact that the Four Power project was not intended as a common front against any nation and was merely an effort to ensure peace along the lines of similar efforts which had been successful in calming disturbed conditions in Europe previously. The Ambassador said that if this could be done it was the hope of Mussolini that some word could be said in Washington indicating America’s interest in the purposes of the pact because he felt that any word from America would have a great effect with the Disarmament Conference which should reconvene on April 25th.
Mr. Davis said that on this point the Ambassador had touched the center of the question; that America could associate itself with the Four Powers in efforts to promote disarmament, and if an agreement between them advanced these purposes, America was willing to sit down with them to discuss how far the result of the Four Power Agreement might be expected to bring about more rapid and more far reaching steps to disarmament.
The Ambassador felt that a statement of this kind in America at this time might be extremely helpful, as indicating the fact that there was no distrust of the purposes of the Four Power agreement, and that it was considered by the principal nations not included in its scope as giving hope for peace and promise of disarmament.
Mr. Davis said that he naturally could not commit himself on a question of this kind without mature reflection, but he was very glad to consider the Ambassador’s suggestions and hoped he would keep in touch with him.
- Of a conversation with the Italian Ambassador (Pignatti) at the Hotel Bristol, Paris, April 11, 1933, 4:30 p.m.; James Theodore Marriner, Counselor of Embassy in France, was also present. The memorandum was transmitted to the Department by Mr. Davis under covering letter of April 13, 1933; received April 23.↩