Office of the Historian

611.5431/260

Memorandum by Mr. H. M. Catudal of the Division of Trade Agreements

[Washington,] October 22, 1935.

Memorandum of Conversation With Swiss Negotiators Re Smuggling Plan

  • Present:
    • For Switzerland:
      • Mr. Micheli
      • Mr. Nef
      • Mr. Amez-Droz
    • For the United States:
      • Mr. Murphy (Treasury)
      • Mr. Catudal (TA)

The meeting was devoted to the discussion of the Swiss offer to establish a system of control over the exportation of watches and watch movements. As a basis for discussion, a draft protocol had been prepared by Mr. Murphy and Mr. Catudal embodying substantially the Swiss plan of export permits, with the requirement, however, for the marking of watches and movements with importers’ symbols instead of exporters’ symbols as originally suggested by the [Page 767] Swiss. In our draft proposal, the marking requirements would become operative if and when appropriate legislation requiring such marking became effective in the United States.

After going over the draft in detail, the Swiss agreed to accept it with certain reservations to be ironed out later, on the condition that a “guarantee clause” be inserted, providing in substance that the United States would guarantee that no unilateral measures would be taken in connection with the smuggling of watches and movements which went beyond the agreement. In other words, the Swiss would make their plan conditional upon our guarantee that the Watch Smuggling Bill would not be enacted into law.

The Swiss were informed that we could not even discuss this point which we considered definitely settled at previous meetings where it had been plainly pointed out to the Swiss that their plan would be acceptable to us as a supplement to, but not as a substitute for, domestic legislation. The Swiss were referred to Mr. Williamson on this point.