500.A15A4 General Committee/98: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 21—11:51 p.m.]
360. The General Commission met this afternoon to consider the Beneš resolution presented yesterday. The preamble was adopted as well as clauses on air and artillery contained in chapter 2.
Before the general discussion Litvinof advanced a series of amendments framed to bring about changes in both the preamble and chapters 2 and 3. His proposed amendment to the preamble provided for at least a 33 1/3 percent reduction in all categories of land, naval and air armaments with exception of the armies of smaller countries of navies under 100,000.59 In a long speech he sharply criticised the resolution as failing to achieve any real purpose. On a vote as to whether the text of the draft resolution should be maintained or not his amendments relating to the preamble and the clauses on air and land artillery in chapter 2 failed of adoption. Balbo, Italy, provided the sensation of the afternoon in a brief statement to the effect that the Fascist Government while unwilling to take any step which would in any way prejudice the adoption of the resolution nevertheless felt itself obliged to abstain from voting on the resolution as a whole or any of its clauses on the grounds that it was entirely insufficient and offered no real grounds towards actual attainment of the principles of disarmament upheld by his country. He concluded by stating that his Government nevertheless saw no objection to an agreement for the prolongation of the arms truce.
Nadolny announced that he reserved all comment until the end of the general discussion and that he would abstain from voting on any of the individual chapters of the resolution. He stated that he would present his Government’s views with regard to the resolution as a whole at the close of the debate.
In the discussion of the air provisions Motta as spokesman for the smaller states while supporting the resolution made an eloquent appeal for the total abolition of bombardment aviation and bombing planes. He was followed by Simon who dealt at some length with the difficulties in realizing any more far-reaching restrictions on [Page 311] aviation at this time in view of the difficulties over the control of civil aircraft.
A further amendment by the Swedish and Dutch representatives proposed to substitute for the land artillery provisions resolution, a simple limitation of the number and maximum calibre of mobile land artillery. A long debate ensued in which I intervened stating that while our delegation would prefer a simpler text, we could not but feel that the actual wording of the resolution represents in fact the maximum of achievement which had been arrived at as the result of lengthy and arduous debate without prejudice to our right to press for more far-reaching measures later.
The General Commission will resume its discussion of the resolution tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock.
- Latter part of this sentence is apparently garbled. This portion of the amendment as submitted by Mr. Litvinoff read as follows: “with exemption for small countries respectively possessing armies of not above 30,000 men and a total naval tonnage of not above 100,000 tons, and also for countries which have been subjected to disarmament in virtue of other international agreements.” (Records of the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, Series B, Minutes of the General Commission, vol. i, pp. 164, 166.)↩