700.00116/187
The Secretary of War (Weeks) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: With reference to your letter of April 5, 1923,54 (WE), enclosing a copy of a despatch from the American Delegates on the Commission of Jurists to Consider and Report upon the Revision of the Rules of Warfare at The Hague, accompanied by a General Report of the Commission together with other pertinent documents, and my reply thereto of April 14, 1923,54 I am pleased to advise you that the radio and aerial warfare rules embodied in the Commission’s General Report are in general accord with the views of the War Department.
It is realized, of course, that not all of the articles or sub-paragraphs thereof, of the General Report, are framed in language our delegates would have selected had they had a free hand in drafting the code of rules finally adopted. The necessity for concession and compromise in order that the general aims of the United States might be accomplished is fully understood and appreciated by me.
[Page 89]On the whole it would seem that the Commission’s General Report meets the need of the situation so far as it is possible now to determine, and the War Department has no objection to embodying the articles contained therein in any treaty that might be drafted between the United States and the other Powers represented on the Commission.
I am enclosing for your information, under Appendix “A”, a detailed comparison of the War Department Draft of Rules with the United States’ Proposals to the Commission, and under Appendix “B”, the comments of the War Department upon the individual articles of the Commission’s General Report.55
Sincerely yours,