500.A15A4 General Committee/967: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 8—8:50 a.m.]
885. 1. In a final effort to reach an agreement upon a modification of the French resolution the British, French, and ourselves dined with Barthou last night. At 11:30 we agreed upon a revised text which I transmit by separate cable.13
2. As you will note this is a considerable improvement as it meets the main objections which we had to the French original draft. It also marks a really considerable concession on the part of the French. However, Barthou and Pietri14 seem most happy and most grateful to us for our efforts in bringing them and the British together.
3. What means more than anything is that the British and French, both of whose people most earnestly desire peace, have passed through a most acrimonious misunderstanding and have now reached an agreement. This fact gives added assurance of peace and grounds for hoping that they can deal in a constructive way with the problem of German rearmament and ultimately with general disarmament.
4. The British and French invited us to become joint authors in the resolution for presentation to the Bureau this afternoon. This we declined explaining that we thought the real value to the resolution was the public evidence of unanimity of view between France and England which would be somewhat detracted from by our association. However, I said that I would be happy to support it which was quite satisfactory to them.
5. I have gone over the text this morning with Sandler, the chairman of the neutral group, who was quite satisfied and who is calling his group together to get their approval before the meeting this afternoon.
6. Eden under instructions from his Government last night invited Barthou to visit London. Barthou was obviously pleased and accepted with the understanding that he would come in the first days of July after his return from his trip to Bucharest. When it is announced the visit will be described as taking place by “mutual arrangement”.