500.A15A4 Steering Committee/391: Telegram
The Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received January 12—3:52 p.m.]
9. My 5, January 5, 4 p.m. Foreign Secretary informed me this morning Eden will leave for Geneva Sunday and he and Boncour23 will arrive there Thursday. He saw Henderson yesterday and advised him not to summon the Bureau before the end of the month since in his view the possibilities of the present method of informal bilateral diplomatic exchange of views on disarmament had not yet been exhausted. In Simon’s opinion this was also the French viewpoint. In his personal opinion the Bureau will not meet until the end of January or in fact very probably not until the early days of February.
As regards Germany Foreign Secretary welcomed the fact that after the receipt of the French aide-mémoire in Berlin it was obvious that Franco-German conversations were to continue. He summed up the German position as: [Page 7]
- (1)
- insisting upon the right of equality in principle;
- (2)
- willingness to accept supervision providing such supervision were general;
- (3)
- willingness to accept a preliminary period in which Germany would have the right to complete her defensive armament; during this period the other great powers would progressively reduce offensive armament. At the conclusion of this period Germany would demand equality in existent offensive armament with other nations. (Simon added Mussolini had suggested 6 years for this preliminary period but that British point of view leaned more towards a 10-year period.)
Simon agreed with me that Hitler at the present time was not anxious to expedite the conclusion of any disarmament convention. If this German attitude continued he felt that it might be advisable later on, say towards the end of February, for the other powers to make some public statement as to their views.
The Foreign Secretary was obviously pleased with his visit to Rome and felt his conversations had modified Mussolini’s viewpoint. As regards the French he felt the Franco-German negotiations based on the recent French aide-mémoire still contained fruitful possibilities. Simon expressed the hope he might see Davis and Wilson before the Bureau meeting, and learned with satisfaction of Department’s telegram 3, January 11, 6 p.m.24
In conclusion the Foreign Secretary said that at the Cabinet meeting January 10th it was decided that British policy for the moment would concentrate on assisting in the present bilateral diplomatic exchange of views and concurrently urging general adoption by the powers of a policy progressively reducing offensive armament during such a preliminary period as referred to in subparagraph 3 of this telegram.
Copy mailed Geneva, Paris, Berlin, Rome.