711.0012Anti-War/243: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Spain (Hammond)
53. Your No. 76, August 13, 10 a.m. I have read the Prime Minister’s memorandum replying to your oral explanations of reasons why signatures to treaty are limited to the original powers. You will please communicate to the Prime Minister very sincere regret I feel that any misunderstanding has occurred.
Either in writing or orally you may state, further, that never has there been the slightest implication that Spain occupies an inferior rank among the powers. There is not the least intent on my part to intimate that Spain is not wholeheartedly for world peace or to minimize her influence in world councils. The negotiations were limited to a few powers, as you undoubtedly explained, in order to have signed within a reasonable time a treaty which could be the basis of a treaty between all nations of the world. To enter into negotiations with all the countries of the world with any hope of obtaining within a reasonable time a basis for a multilateral treaty renouncing war would be an impossibility. I did suggest, in the first instance, it is true, the six original powers. The only others added were the constituent parts of the British Empire and the additional powers signatories of the Locarno treaties. The explanation for those inclusions has already been given. I could not enlarge the number of original signatories except in consultation with the other powers; it soon developed that, although they had no objection whatever to Spain’s becoming an original signatory, there would have to follow a very general extension to other powers and, as a result, the renewal of negotiations with practically every power in the world. The signature of the treaty would thereby have been indefinitely postponed. I could not insist, therefore, to the other signatories that the program be changed at this late date and an invitation be extended to all the other powers of the world. I am conscious of the abiding sentiment of the Government of Spain and of the Spanish people in favor of peace and of their desire to further any movement which aims at peace. I am also most anxious to express the sentiments of sympathy and of deep regard which both the American Government and the people of this country have for the Spanish Government and the Spanish people. I hope that Spain will be one of the first countries to adhere to the treaty, in this way obtaining for that great nation the same rights, and placing her in same position as any other signatory.