Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1934, General, the British Commonwealth, Volume I

500.A15A4/2463: Telegram

The Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham) to the Secretary of State

London, April 5, 1934—3 p.m.
[Received April 5—2:15 p.m.]

153. From Norman Davis.

1. The calling of the Bureau for April 10 and the various disarmament questions that are now arising and requiring attention including the tentative naval negotiations⁸⁸ will necessitate some decision with regard to my future movements and the advisability or desirability of terminating my leave of absence and resuming officially the disarmament work. The private work on which I have been engaged is now at a state where I can easily drop it if and when necessary.

2. When the Cabinet members who are still absent from London on holiday return including Henderson whom I am seeing today I expect conversations with them will somewhat clarify the situation and help to determine whether I should attend the Bureau meeting. It is not yet known who will represent the respective Governments at the Bureau meeting. I am informed however that Litvinoff⁸⁹ will attend.

If as is the consensus of opinion here the Bureau can go no further than fix a day for the reconvening of the General Commission I am inclined to think that the meeting of the General Commission would be the most appropriate time and place to restate and amplify our position unless perhaps the President would feel disposed to deal with the question in some special address. In the meantime we can be considering the possible purport of such a statement. What the General Commission will do if and when it reconvenes will no doubt depend largely upon the negotiations which the British are now conducting with the French.

3. I fully appreciate the distinction pointed out in your 130, April 2, 7 p.m., between a violation of the Briand-Kellogg Pact and a disarmament convention as amended. If it were possible to secure an agreement for real disarmament as was contemplated last May, my opinion is that if some nation should seriously violate such a convention and refuse to stop the violation it would be a most serious matter and of such vital concern to those that had disarmed that we would be justified at least in agreeing not to interfere with legitimate measures taken to enforce compliance. I realize, however, that public opinion at home may not be prepared for such a step in which case it would be futile and inadvisable to undertake it.

4. The British are meekly but definitely coming to the conclusion that no nation in Europe will be secure, particularly against air attack without agreements for collective action. Cecil⁹⁰ told me yesterday that the idea of economic sanctions involving an embargo on exports is being discarded as impracticable and difficult of enforcement and instead the conviction is growing that the simplest and least objectionable method of dealing with an aggressor or violating nation would be an agreement to prohibit under certain conditions importations from such nations. This he believes would soon bring any recalcitrant nation to terms and would not raise very serious questions with regard to neutrality.

5. I understand the British are still hopeful of getting the French to consent to a disarmament agreement along the lines of their last memorandum⁹¹ conditional upon committing themselves to specific measures of guarantees but which would no doubt be conditional upon our agreeing not to interfere by the assertion of our neutral rights with such measures taken to deal with the violator of such a convention. If the British should fail in these efforts I do not know what their position would ultimately be with regard to a treaty of limitation based on the Italian proposal. So far as we are concerned I agree with you that this would be a negation of the position for which we have stood and if only an armed truce can be secured I doubt the wisdom of our entering into it. If, however, we should be called upon to state our position on a treaty of lesser scope than that heretofore contemplated it seems to me that it would be appropriate for us to say something to the following effect:

“The United States believing that the only practicable way to promote security and solve the disarmament problem would be to abolish by definite stages certain types of aggressive weapons used for invasion, to establish a system of automatic supervision and control over the manufacture and shipment of arms and to enter into a general pact of non-aggression, indicated last May the extent to which it was prepared to cooperate to this end. In order to aid in the adoption of such a program the Administration then went to the limit of what it believed American public opinion would approve. The United States has grave doubts as to the value, the efficacy and the wisdom of a program of lesser scope. It certainly would not feel justified in making the same sacrifices for a so-called disarmament convention that provides for no disarmament and offers few if any definite benefits as it would be disposed to make for a real disarmament. If it is not possible, however, because of European political conditions and exigencies to agree upon a program for progressive disarmament to a specified level the United States does not wish to stand in the way of the adoption of a more limited program or of any steps which Europe may see fit to take. The extent, however, to which the United States might be able to cooperate would require examination of the full details of such a program and also the approval of the United States Senate.[”]

• [Davis]
• Bingham

88. For correspondence relating to the first session of preliminary naval conversations at London, June 18–July 19, 1934, see pp. 259 ff.
89. Maxim Litvinov, Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs; Chairman of the Soviet delegation to the Disarmament Conference.
90. Viscount Cecil of Cheiwood, President of League of Nations Union.
91. January 29, 1934; for text, see Department of State, Press Releases, March 3, 1934, p. 110.