724.3415/4158: Telegram (part air)
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 21—5:30 a.m.]
247. Council this morning discussed the question of the arms embargo and adopted a report in which it is stated that insofar as the Council is concerned this question now has its natural place in the Sixth Committee of the Assembly to which the dispute has been referred [Page 288] and that its further discussion by the Council would serve no useful purpose.
The French delegate emphasized that the delay by certain states in applying the embargo measures placed his Government in a difficult position and urged these states to take immediate action. The representatives of Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and Spain supported this view.
Referring to the question in its larger aspects the French delegate also declared that the dispute must be settled in the shortest possible time and that the League must insist upon the proper execution of any decisions it may take.
With regard to the Council’s decision mentioned above while I have no information as to whether or in what manner the arms embargo question may actually be raised in the Sixth Committee it is possible that an attempt may be made at some time to join the embargo with the Assembly’s action on the substance of the dispute along the lines of the suggestion described in my despatch 979, political, August 25, pages 11 and 12.