500.A15A4 General Committee/1018
The President of the General Disarmament Conference ( Henderson ) to President Roosevelt
Dear Mr. President: I have been anxious for some time past to write to you on the position and prospects of the Disarmament Conference. This temptation has never been as great as now, and I must confess that I yield to it with an undoubted pleasure.
You are fully aware how this great venture has from the start been hampered by a series of unfortunate events not calculated to enhance that feeling of mutual confidence and security which is essential for any serious measure of reduction and limitation of armaments. But I need not, towards the end of the third year of the Conference, attempt a review of all its vicissitudes. It will be sufficient for all practical purposes to say a word or two about the last meeting of the General Commission and the Bureau.
The position of the Conference was at that moment critical. We were all conscious of being faced with perhaps our last chance of reconciling the demand for security made by a great number of delegations with the claim of Germany for equality of rights, accepted conditionally December 1932 by certain other great Powers, and later on supported by a larger number of delegations to the Conference.
I am aware that, in making this statement, I may seem to resign myself to a gradual modification of the original purposes of the Conference, which was convened to secure a reduction and limitation of armaments. I need hardly say that two-and-a-half years of strenuous effort in an assembly of sixty-four nations have convinced me that in [Page 137] this imperfect world a very high price may have to be paid for even a moderate success in disarmament. It is indeed hard for those who believe in promoting peace by disarmament to be obligated to accept a less ambitious programme of peace through security, accompanied perhaps by only a tentative first effort towards disarmament. The statesmen meeting in Geneva—and the President of the Conference with them—had, however, to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a convention embodying very little reduction against no convention at all. A sense of the appalling consequences of choosing the latter alternative drove us all finally, in despair of a better achievement, to content ourselves with aiming at a first convention providing a moderate reduction and limitation of armaments, accompanied by such agreements on security as might be obtained without prejudice to the fundamental principles embodied in the Covenant of the League of Nations, under whose auspices this Conference was convened.
Incidentally, it was unanimously recognized by the Conference that even this measure of success could not be attained without Germany’s participation in our proceedings, more especially as the return of that country to Geneva would imply that a solution had been found for the difficult problem of equality of rights. When, therefore, the Conference made an effort to agree, in a formal resolution, on the necessity of Germany returning to the Conference, it was expressing a general desire to secure a convention which would introduce a system of international regulation in the field of armaments, where so far, if we except the questions covered by the Washington and London Naval Treaties,57 unlimited freedom has hitherto existed.
I must emphasize that this compromise between the two tendencies, security and equality, was achieved largely because the United States, not being committed to either of them, were in a position to act as a mediating influence between the delegations concerned and made good use of the opportunity thus afforded them of helping to bring the parties to agreement.
The recent conversations which have taken place in London constitute a first step towards giving effect to the undertakings accepted on June 8th 1934 by those participating in the Conference. Mr. Davis has no doubt informed you in detail of these London negotiations. In my opinion they have considerably facilitated Germany’s return to the Conference, since, if the regional agreements contemplated by certain Powers materialise, the Protocol of December 11th 1932,58 providing for the grant of equality to Germany in a régime of general [Page 138] security, will have received as satisfactory an application as is possible in present circumstances.
I am therefore not without hope of still securing a convention providing for a reduction and limitation of armaments, such reduction and limitation constituting an integral part of the Protocol to which I have just referred.
The Bureau of the Conference will meet again early in September, probably during the second week, and important decisions will have to be taken in the light of the situation then obtaining. If the regional agreements have by that time proved acceptable in principle to those chiefly concerned, we should look forward to Germany’s return with a certain optimism. In this event we may reasonably hope that a convention will be obtained. It should baffle neither our patience nor the ingenuity of the experts to give legal form to the technical decisions reached by the Conference in the last two-and-a-half years.
But past experience has taught me not to underestimate the difficulties which may be awaiting the Conference and I venture to hope that, despite the important tasks claiming your attention at home, you will continue to show in our work here that active interest which has so heartened us in the past. I would in particular refer to the message which you addressed in May of last year to the heads of States59 urging upon them the elimination of offensive weapons as an ultimate object of the Conference, and to the communication60 which you recently adressed to Congress on the subject of the trade in and manufacture of arms. In consequence of that communication the appropriate Committee was able, as a preliminary step, to prepare a series of draft Articles which I have submitted to the General Commission and which in my view offer a more hopeful method of approach to that very difficult problem.
Before closing, I would express the hope that we may before Christmas secure a disarmament convention which will profoundly affect national and international affairs for years to come. It will be a source of encouragement to me in facing these supreme issues to recall that the United States Delegation to the Conference has, throughout its proceedings supported with energy the cause of disarmament and has shown itself ever ready to make its contribution to the general system of security and peace.
I am, dear Mr. President,
Yours faithfully,
- For text of the Washington Naval Treaty, see Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 247; for text of the London Naval Treaty, see ibid., 1930, vol. i, p. 107.↩
- For text of Protocol, see ibid., 1932, vol. i, p. 527; for documents pertaining thereto, see ibid., pp. 489–528.↩
- May 16, 1933; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1933, vol. i, p. 143.↩
- May 18, 1934; for text, see Congressional Record, vol. 78, pt. 8, p. 9095; see also circular telegram of May 18, 1934, to the Ambassador in Great Britain, post, p. 427.↩