500.A15A4/1126: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 15—11:05 p.m.]
250. Our 244, June 14, 7 p.m. Massigli asked to see me this afternoon and said he was perplexed by the reports that the British were discouraged as the result of yesterday’s conversation and that he thought perhaps the best way of making clear to us what happened was to read us his notes which he took at the time since he was interpreting for his delegation. These he read from paper bearing the heading of the British delegation.
MacDonald proposed that the five nations Great Britain, France, United States, Italy, Japan should hold conversations to attempt to get specific results in qualitative disarmament. Paul-Boncour and Herriot replied that they had no objection, but that they did not feel that the conversations could be rigidly limited to this point since limitation of expenditure for example was corollary to qualitative disarmament; some form of control had to be envisaged such as perhaps was contemplated in the draft of the preparatory convention, the measure of abolition of certain arms was dependent on whether a reserve of arms was kept under the control of the League of Nations.
MacDonald and Simon raised the question of how to go about discussing the German claim for equality of treatment without the presence of the Germans. Herriot replied in a statement which Massigli took down verbatim to the effect that France could not accept the demand of the Germans to discuss a political question on the threshold of a disarmament conference, that they would not exclude the possibility of such discussion after they had seen what was to be accomplished in real measures of disarmament. He said that if the Germans were to insist on starting the discussion with a political demand for equality he would under the circumstances be obliged to reply to the political refusal [demand?] taking the ground that up to the present the terms of the Versailles Treaty has not been modified. (We explored this more deeply with Massigli, who restated the position thus, that nothing has yet impaired the validity of the Treaty of Versailles, that the specific results of subsequent discussions in the Disarmament Conference might constitute some modification. After it has been discovered whether or not this has been done they are willing to discuss the political question but not to prejudge the Conference labors by discussing it first.)
Massigli said that the erroneous impression which had been given us as to the character of the conversation prompted him to ask us [Page 175] whether we had indeed expressed a disinclination to participate in conversations between the French and British. Yesterday morning he said that on the train coming down from Paris on Monday it had been agreed that at 11 o’clock yesterday morning there was to be a three-party discussion and Simon had agreed to request us to attend, that on the following morning Simon’s secretary had telephoned the French delegation to say that “the Americans have expressed a preference not to participate in this conversation between the French and English”. This is not the fact as we were not consulted.
As suggested in my 244 there seems to be a poker game between the British and French regarding reparations and disarmament and in this game the British may have considered our presence embarrassing. This may account for their reluctance to show their hand.