500.A15A4/2464: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 6—8:35 a.m.]
154. From Norman Davis.
1. Henderson and Aghnides who called on me yesterday could not give any definite information as to who will attend the Bureau meeting and what is likely to transpire. Henderson said that in his last talk with Simon and Eden they indicated a desire to postpone the Conference to give more time for the negotiations with the French but that he was not in favor of a further postponement and that if the British and French want it they must state their reasons before the Bureau and let the Bureau decide.
Henderson asked if I were going to the Bureau meeting and said he hoped very much that I would. I told him it would depend upon what the Bureau is likely to do and who is going to attend. He said [Page 42] that he thought Simon and Barthou92 ought to go and that he was going to try to get them to do so but that in any event it would be helpful and have a good effect for me to go. Aghnides thinks that if I did not go it would add to the impression that we have lost interest. I am not clear as yet in my own mind as to whether I should go to Geneva now and would appreciate your opinion.
Henderson is leaving for Paris tomorrow and seeing Barthou Saturday morning. He said that he would call me by telephone after his talk with Barthou. Aghnides, who has just come from Paris, told me that the permanent officials in the French Foreign Office and also Petain93 and Weygand94 are now in favor of an agreement along the lines of the British memorandum but that Tardieu and Herriot95 have not yet come around.
2. Simon who is in the country told me by telephone last night that he would be in the city today and would like to have a talk with me and I am to see him at 11 o’clock this morning. He asked about my plans and if I were going to Geneva. I told him it depended upon developments and asked if he were going. He said that Eden would go but that while he had no authority to tell me he might say confidentially he thought the meeting of the Bureau would be adjourned for a short period but that he would tell me all he knows today. [Davis.]
- Jean Louis Barthou, French Minister for Foreign Affairs; Chairman of the French delegation to the General Disarmament Conference.↩
- Henri Philippe Petain, French member on the General Commission; Minister of War.↩
- Maxime Weygand, French member on the General Commission; General Inspector of the Army.↩
- André Tardieu and Edouard Herriot, Ministers of State without portfolio in the Doumergue Ministry.↩