500.A15A4 General Committee/954: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 5—2:35 a.m.]
869. 1. As envisaged in my 866, June 2, 8 p.m., Henderson informed the Bureau this afternoon that the time had come to deal with the main political differences; that it was doubtful whether interrupted work could be usefully recommenced without a reconciliation of the divergences which a study of the French note of January 1st, the British memorandum of January 29, the Italian memorandum of January 4th94 and the German note of April 16th show to have been narrowed. Those remaining divergences must be removed in order to secure Germany’s return to the Conference and the League, the condition necessary to any convention. In order to give time to those delegations who are working on regional agreements to prepare assurances of security, he proposed that these might be discussed in private negotiations between the states particularly concerned, while the Bureau would receive authorization from the General Commission to take steps necessary to secure the cooperation of all states.
2. In the discussion which ensued and which served only to widen the breach the French made it clear that they did not propose to abandon the study of security. They refused to commit themselves to any arrangement to bring Germany back.
3. In an effort to harmonize the differences and to support the President I explained that I thought the question of security could be dealt with simultaneously with the reconciliation of the notes in question and that while every one recognized the importance of security we were interested in it solely in its connection with disarmament. Furthermore while guarantees of execution properly came within the framework of the Conference the regional agreements proposed, I explained, should be a subject for discussion between certain states only and should not concern the Conference as a whole.
4. The British declared positively that they supported Henderson’s proposal, were ready to take part in any efforts to serve the main object of the Conference, namely disarmament, and that its immediate task [Page 100] should be to reconcile the divergences expressed in the four documents in question.
5. Speaking for the neutrals Sandler95 supported what I had said. He, together with the representatives of the neutrals, Motta96 and Madariaga,97 endeavored to reconcile the two diverging schools of thought but expressed themselves as being of the opinion that security could not be divorced from disarmament. They all felt that a way must be found to try to bring Germany back.
6. Litvinoff presented a resolution98 today which would in addition to transforming the Conference into a permanent peace body make the return of Germany dependent upon successful outcome of discussion on security here. He explained that he did not wish to press his proposal for a peace conference too strongly at the moment as some delegations might wish for further time to consider it but he felt that at least as regards the study of security it should be begun by a committee of the Conference immediately.
7. An effort was made to form a drafting committee which would, as Henderson explained, attempt to reconcile the different methods of approach suggested in the proposals of the Turkish delegation and of the neutrals, submitted at Friday’s meeting of the General Commission as well as the Soviet proposal of today while endeavoring to work out a method which would permit reconciliation of the divergences in the memoranda of the four great powers permitting Germany’s return to the League. This failed, however, as it ran up against the acute differences which now mark this stage of the Conference. Henderson refused to permit the drafting committee to work on any proposal which would not deal simultaneously with the problem of Germany’s return. No conciliation between the two schools of thought was found possible this afternoon. Nothing was decided and Henderson ruled to postpone discussion until tomorrow without even attempting to establish an agenda for the work. We therefore start from scratch tomorrow.
- Great Britain, cmd. 4512, p. 15.↩
- Rickard J. Sandler, head of the Swedish delegation to the General Commission; Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Giuseppe Motta, head of the Swiss delegation to the General Commission.↩
- Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish delegate to the General Commission.↩
- Minutes of the Bureau, vol. ii, p. 212.↩