500.A15A4 General Committee/945: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation ( Davis )
418. Your 850, May 29, 10 p.m. My understanding coincides with yours as to the essential purpose of your efforts in Geneva. From this distance it would seem that the key to the arch is to prevail on Germany to resume participation in the Conference. Do I understand you rightly as proposing to regard the MacDonald plan of June 8th, 1933,69 with its minimum of German rearmament as your immediate objective, but with positions prepared to retreat by slow stages to the proposals contained in the British note of January 29th, 1934, as your ultimate limit of concession? There seems a wide difference between the position advocated in your speech and your present recommendation. It is most important, in order that we may gauge public reaction here, to know in greater detail the course of action you recommend in various contingencies.
- British draft convention was submitted to the General Disarmament Conference on March 16, 1933, and approved by the General Commission on June 8, 1933, as the basis of the future convention; for text, see Conference Documents, vol. ii, pp. 476–493.↩