500.A15A4/1343: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)
187. I fear that the draft submitted in your 343, July 19, 4 p.m., fails to represent any advance over that contained in your 333, July 15, 9 p.m. and is open to the same type of objection.
The insistence of the French is quite understandable, but global limitation of expenditure cannot be listed as a principle that the Conference has agreed to nor can we with honesty accept a resolution which provides that the Conference will determine a system of limitation of expenditure or which requests the bureau to formulate a plan on the basis of the still uncompleted report of the Commission of National Defense Expenditure. This might encourage either the Conference or the general public to believe that we might later be prepared to reverse our position on this question.
Apart from the inherent inacceptibility to us of global limitation of expenditure, I am the less disposed to modify our stand on this point as (1) we have consistently refused to alter our position (see Department’s 145, June 21, 11 p.m.,43 168, July 2, 10 [9] p.m., 170, July 6, 11 a.m. and 183, July 17, 11 a.m.) and the French can have no reason to feel that we were disposed to make any concessions on this point; and (2) I do not feel that the resolution in its present form is strong enough to warrant the French asking us for an additional concession or modification of principle.
If you are unable to avoid any reference to the subject in the resolution it will be necessary for you to devise some phraseology that will specifically and not merely inferentially except us from an acceptance of the principle.