500.A15A4/1770: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
566. In the course of a long conversation with MacDonald and Simon today I read them paraphrases of your 302 and 303. I did this although I knew that events had been moving rapidly during the past few hours and that the British had decided upon a course of action at variance with our views. MacDonald appeared discouraged at having departed from the lines we had indicated and went in for rather long explanations. It was clear that I had come too late to effect a reversal of their plan as he had this morning given to Reuters a certain amount of information for immediate publication and had thus taken an irrevocable step.
He said that he had tried his hand at a treaty of limited objectives and had satisfied himself we were right that there was not a sufficient measure of agreement to make such a document generally acceptable.
On the other hand while he had at first felt that the Conference must be kept going in some form for the present he had revised his view after having convinced himself of the fatuous character of the work now being done and the increasing tension of the debates.
[Page 42]The only remaining course which he could see lay in putting before the Conference a plan for real disarmament which appears to be of a very drastic character. Accordingly, without consulting any other delegation, he has prepared a draft treaty with definite figures which he will present tomorrow afternoon at a meeting of the General Commission with a speech in downright terms addressing admonitions to Germany, France and to other countries for their share of responsibility for the present state of the Conference. He proposes to say that we are getting farther and farther away from our task and that if this Conference proposes ever to agree upon disarmament it will have to agree upon something of the character of the proposals which will be laid before the Conference at the end of his speech; that they contain one or more features that are distasteful to almost every nation but that this is inevitable if there is to be any real measure of disarmament and that there are some of them which are just as repugnant to his country as they could be to anybody else. His present mood seems to be that the Conference had better be made to face up to the real problem of disarmament and either succeed or fail on that issue in the near future.
He has not consulted any other delegation in regard to his plan and although he skirted around some of the principal features he carefully refrained from giving me any details. This seemed preferable from our own point of view as I should like to be in a position if necessary to deny any foreknowledge and the charge that this is another Anglo-American effort.
MacDonald and Simon both appear to assume that this proposal will force the issue and bring about an early decision but the French, I learn confidentially, have decided that they will not oppose the plan but will welcome it in the general discussion and then seek to have it broken up and sent to the various committees where they can destroy it in detail so that it is not at all certain that the British objectives will be achieved.
MacDonald intimated yesterday to the Italians that if invited he would be disposed to pay a visit to Rome. He tells me he expects the invitation to arrive tonight, that he will leave here Friday night, reach Rome Saturday afternoon by air and will leave again for London on Monday morning. This means he and Simon will leave Geneva before completion of the preliminary general discussion of the British plan.
MacDonald makes no secret of annoyance with the French for the attacks they have stirred up against him in the French press. He has expressed himself on the subject in plain terms to Boncour and their relations are distinctly strained so that he will probably have little moderating influence on the French for the time being.
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