500.A15A4/1255: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)
171. The views of the War and Navy Departments with respect to the points raised in your 274, June 24, 6 p.m.,30 may be summarized as follows. The Department will forward by the next pouch the letters setting forth their views in detail.
- 1.
- Chemical and Bacteriological Warfare.
- (a)
- Navy Department considers resolutions of special committee on chemical warfare acceptable except for its proscription of “appliances, devices or projectiles specially constructed for the utilization of gas warfare” because of the presumed requirement of refraining from peace time preparations of chemicals which it might be necessary to use in domestic disturbances, in defense or retaliation against a treaty breaking state, or for commercial and agricultural purposes.
- (b)
- War Department opposes any restrictions whereby the United States would refrain from all peace time preparation or manufacture of gases, means of launching gas or defensive gas matériel; it opposes any provision that will require the disposal or destruction of any existing installation of our Chemical Warfare Service or of any stocks of chemical war matériel. It desires to maintain the existence of a war department agency engaged in experimentation and manufacture of chemical warfare matériels and in training for unforeseen contingencies.
- 2.
- Maximum limit of unladen weight of airplanes. See telegram No. 168, July 2, 10 [9] p.m.
- 3.
- Modified prohibition of aerial bombardment.
- (a)
- Navy Department has no comment to offer except that the factory as giving rise to controversies over bombing attacks adjacent to the line of limitation. It feels the more satisfactory method of protection of civilian population would be the limitation of bombing to strictly military objectives.
- (b)
- War Department considers suggestion of restricting air bombing operations to X kilometers from the front as entirely impracticable.
- 4.
- Numerical restriction of aircraft. See telegram No. 168, July 2, 10 [9] p.m.
- 5.
- Budgetary Limitation.
- (a and b) Navy Department and War Department remain unalterably opposed to the principle of limitation of expenditures.
- 6.
- Artillery.
- (a)
- Navy Department has no comment to offer except that the proposed scrapping of artillery of greater caliber than naval guns should not because of a desire to effect a maximum reduction be permitted to lead to a decrease in the caliber now permitted naval guns under the Washington Treaty.
- (b)
- War Department opposes the French position against making a distinction between fixed and mobile artillery. Agreement by the United States to the French position of fixing a maximum caliber to be used with field forces might easily result in scrapping of our 16 inch and other major caliber seacoast defense guns, a situation that it could not countenance.
- 7.
- Private Manufacture of Arms.
- (a) Navy Department considers any restriction of the private manufacture of arms as detrimental to the interests of the United States.
The foregoing views of the Army and Navy Departments should be before you. Inasmuch, however, as your queries were predicated on the possibility of concluding a treaty of limited scope and as our present plan is to persuade the Conference to commit itself in principle on the President’s proposal as a whole, it has not seemed necessary or advisable to call a conference with the Army and Navy and to reach a meeting of minds on the points under discussion. The Department, [Page 271] therefore, refrains from giving you specific instructions on these points until such time as circumstances require a final decision of policy.