711.0012Anti-War/239: Circular telegram
The Secretary of State to American Diplomatic Representatives19
According to present plans the multilateral anti-war treaty negotiated by the United States will be signed in Paris on August 27, 1928. I will telegraph you through the American Embassy at Paris as soon as the treaty is signed and immediately upon receipt of that telegram you should deliver the following note to the Foreign Office dating it the date of the day of the signature of the treaty. In the meantime you will seek an interview with the Foreign Minister and informally acquaint him with the contents of the note.
[The first four paragraphs of the note and the text of treaty which it contains have been omitted. For the text of the omitted paragraphs, see the first four paragraphs of the note quoted in the Department’s telegram No. 247, August 8, 3 p.m., to the Ambassador in France, printed on page 136.]
“The provisions regarding ratification and adherence are, as Your Excellency will observe, found in the third and last article. That article provides that the treaty shall take effect as soon as the ratifications of all the powers named in the preamble shall have been deposited in Washington, and that it shall be open to adherence by all the other powers of the world, instruments evidencing such adherence to be deposited in Washington also. Any power desiring to participate in the treaty may thus exercise the right to adhere thereto and my Government will be happy to receive at any time appropriate notices of adherence from those Governments wishing to contribute to the success of this new movement for world peace by bringing their peoples within its beneficent scope. It will be noted in this connection that the treaty expressly provides that when it has once come into force it shall take effect immediately between an adhering power and the other parties thereto, and it is therefore clear that any Government adhering promptly will fully share in the benefits of the treaty at the very moment it comes into effect.
“I shall shortly transmit for Your Excellency’s convenient reference a printed pamphlet containing the text in translation of M. Briand’s original proposal to my Government of June 20, 1927, and the complete record of the subsequent diplomatic correspondence on the subject of a multilateral treaty for the renunciation of war. I shall also transmit, as soon as received from my Government, a certified copy of the signed treaty.”
When delivering the foregoing note please state that an identic note, mutatis mutandis, is being delivered simultaneously in the [Page 150] other world capitals and that pursuant to the procedure which has been followed throughout the present negotiations the text thereof is being promptly released for publication. It will be given out in Washington for publication in the morning papers of Wednesday, August 29, and you should arrange for publication in the local press at the corresponding time.
If when you deliver this note you have already received a supply of the pamphlet containing the Briand proposal and the correspondence ending with the Japanese note of July 20, 1928, please make a copy immediately available to the Foreign Office. Otherwise transmit a copy as soon as received from the Department.
- In Albania, Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark (including the Government of Iceland), Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Poland (to invite the adherence of the Free City of Danzig), Portugal, Rumania, Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Siam, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela.↩