500.A15/367: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the American Delegate on the Preparatory Commission (Gibson)
56. Your 102, September 16, 4 p.m. I agree that you should take the present opportunity to place our views on record regarding way in which limitations may be brought about as a practical matter and at same time to restate positions taken by our representatives in subcommittees. It is my opinion that you should emphasize efforts we have made in military subcommittee to keep discussions to practical questions instead of to theories of all-inclusive formulae. I should avoid appearance of questioning motives of any group of delegations in military subcommittee.
Following outline is merely suggestion. You are on ground; you have received general instructions; you are fully acquainted with positions we have taken and I expect you to be free to amend or add to this statement as you and your advisers deem suitable. I am merely suggesting some of things to be said. You will also keep in mind that you are not addressing only a body of men who are familiar with entire question, but that you are making a statement which should place position of our delegation clearly before the American people.
Should you think that other illustrations of our helpfulness in guiding Preparatory Commission towards practical results should be mentioned, please add them. The following has been put in the form of a quoted statement solely for sake of convenience, not with any desire to limit you to its wording:98
“The American Delegation welcomes the opportunity given the Preparatory Commission by this plenary session to take stock of the progress thus far made. The Preparatory Commission is aware of the interest with which its work is being followed in the United States, whose Government is most hopeful that from the deliberations in Geneva will come concrete bases for accomplishment in reducing and limiting armaments. The sincerity and optimism of the American Government in this connection were emphasized by the Secretary of State in his speech at Plattsburg on August 18.99
In view of the American Government’s earnest hope for specific achievement, and its desire to do all in its power to make this possible, I wish to place before the Preparatory Commission certain observations upon the work accomplished since we convened in May, and certain suggestions which, in the considered opinion of the [Page 113] American Delegation, may, if accepted, contribute to the greater success of our undertaking.
You will recall that during the first plenary sessions I outlined the general viewpoint of the American Government in regard to the problems before the Preparatory Commission. The discussions of the Preparatory Commission and of its sub-committees since that time have served to confirm my Government in the views I then expressed on its behalf, viz.: 1) That land armament is most susceptible of limitation by regional agreements, 2) that, since the Washington Naval Treaty did not cover all classes of vessels further steps might well be taken to limit the competitive building of types of vessels not so covered, 3) that success in the limitation of armaments is to be achieved by the isolation of as many concrete problems as possible, and the treatment of these in a direct and practical way without awaiting the determination of a set of abstract principles applicable to all armament problems.
The American Delegation has constantly kept in mind the practical objective for which we are all working, viz.: actual agreements for the limitation of armaments. It has endeavored to face realities and to find formulas which gave promise of results in the near future. It has deplored any tendency to discuss exclusively an ideal scheme for universal disarmament which existing conditions throughout the world would appear to make most remote in any practical sense.
Thus the American Delegation has taken the position that limitation, to be practicable, should be directed towards armaments which are in existence and are, therefore, tangible and limitable. The American Delegation has consistently discouraged any effort to calculate the potential economic, financial and industrial resources of one country as against those of another, since it has felt that such elements are not susceptible of limitation and fall outside any practical definition of armaments. In regard to the limitation of naval armaments, the American Delegation has attempted to point out that the standard of tonnage by classes—a practical method of comparison and limitation of naval forces which has clearly demonstrated, since its acceptance in the Washington Treaty, its utility and convenience as a common unit—should be considered in any effort actually to bring about the limitation of navies.
Furthermore the American Delegation has opposed proposals to establish supervision and control of national armaments by an international agency, since it has felt that any limitation agreements must rest primarily upon international good faith and respect for treaties and moreover since it has been shown by the successful operation of the Washington Naval Treaty that such supervision is not necessary.
The American Delegation, therefore, believes it fitting to ask here: just how far along the road to practical results have we progressed and, more particularly, does the work of our Military Sub-Committee, as far as it has gone, promise to be of great assistance to us in arriving at a solution of our problems?
I believe that many of us will agree that the debates of our Military Sub-Committee have, in some instances, confused rather than clarified the issues before us, and that the answers to the questions thus far made will be of very little assistance to us when we come to study them. This has come about, I believe, because this Preparatory [Page 114] Commission perhaps did not give sufficiently clear directions to its Sub-committees, and did not emphasize that it wished merely technical military opinions from Sub-Committee A, and that the political implications of any question should be taken up only by the plenary Preparatory Commission. The result has been that the Military Sub-Committee appears to have approached questions from both the political and the military points of view. It is this confusion of functions which has detracted from the value of the Military Sub-Committee’s work. The American Delegation believes that this condition can be remedied by specific directions addressed to the sub-committee by this Commission. To be precise, we should say that we desire to receive technical expert answers from that subcommittee, that if the views of the Military Sub-Committee’s members are divergent, we wish to receive such divergent expert views, the minority as well as the majority, that the question of the acceptability of this or that expert view, its usefulness and applicability in connection with agreements for the limitation of armaments will be determined by this Commission and by an international conference, that our military experts can lay all these considerations to one side. If we give such a direction, I believe we shall derive important assistance from the eminently qualified group of experts on our Military Sub-Committee, whose maximum usefulness is lost to us now because of their tendency to confuse political with technical considerations.”