500.A15A4 Steering Committee/398: Telegram (part air)
The Adviser to the American Delegation to the General Disarmament Conference ( Mayer ) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 24—7 a.m.]
811. I talked with Henderson and Eden on Saturday just before their departure and after the decision regarding the convocation of the Bureau. Also have had conversations today with Avenol and Aghnides. Certain definite impressions are summarized below.
[Page 8]Disarmament discussion during the Council was much more restricted than was generally [thought?] would be the case. In fact discussion was limited almost entirely to the question of the convocation of the Bureau. Principally this was due first to the delay in the German reply25 to the French memorandum of January 1st and second to the strenuous efforts by the French to include drastic measures in the Saar resolution26 such as provisions for military protection which took so much time and energy to debate and showed such difference of opinion especially between the British and French.
The outstanding feature of the past week from a disarmament point of view was the determined attempt by Beneš and Politis27 to fix immediately the date for the next meeting of the Bureau despite the fact that they were told that this might well interrupt the political negotiations between France and Germany and defeat all hope of a disarmament convention. Beneš appears to have abandoned his attitude of moderation and through his determined attempt to force a definite date for the meeting of the Bureau now to have laid himself open to a serious suspicion that he preferred to see the Conference fail rather than that the Franco-German conversations should succeed and a Franco-German understanding be thus begun with all this might imply for the future of Czechoslovakia.
Avenol stood strongly with Henderson and Aghnides against the naming of a date at this time for a meeting of the Bureau although this was in opposition to the French point of view which while not as determined in its expression as Beneš from all accounts nevertheless was sympathetic to his point of view.
As the last paragraph of the communiqué of January 2028 (see my 810, January 20, 4 p.m.28) has been explained to me the understanding is that at the meeting of the officers on February 13 (at London) the Bureau will be convoked at once, say the 20th, if there seems to be no likelihood of the diplomatic negotiations succeeding. It will then be for the Bureau to take the responsibility of deciding whether to prolong the present adjournment in order to give more time for the negotiations or to take some other action. If contrariwise it appears on February 13th that the negotiations are proceeding hopefully the officers will probably not convoke the Bureau immediately.
Avenol tells me in strict confidence that according to French opinion the German reply is not constructive but merely to drag the negotiations along indefinitely. It therefore appears to him that unless something [Page 9] picks up meanwhile the officers of the Bureau on the 13th will have to convoke the Bureau at once.
Mailed Paris, London.
- Dated January 19, 1934; for English text, see Great Britain, Cmd. 4512, p. 8.↩
- For French attitude toward draft Saar resolution, see League of Nations, Official Journal, February 1934 (pt. i), pp. 162–163.↩
- Nicolas Politis, Head of the Greek delegation to the General Disarmament Conference; Minister to France.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩