511.4A6/194: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul at Geneva ( Gilbert )
Your December 20, 9 a.m.77 Since London Preliminary Conference was called merely to prepare certain material for the May Conference, which this Government has not yet agreed to attend and since the American representative78 had not formally accepted on behalf of this-Government any of the results of the Preliminary Conference, he did not consider it necessary or advisable to have any formal reservation of the position of this Government appear in the report issued by the Conference. However, when formal reservations were made by certain delegates the American representative stated that his failure to make any formal reservation for incorporation in the report of the conference should not be understood as committing the Government of the United States in any way in regard to the measures which had been discussed by the Conference. In reply, the President of the Conference stated that all delegates were in the same position; that none of the delegates were plenipotentiaries and no Government would be bound by any decision of the Conference; that all that the Conference could do was to make recommendations and submit proposals for the consideration of the various Governments and for the consideration of the Advisory Committee and the May Conference; and that all of the Governments represented at the London Conference were at liberty to start quite a different scheme if they saw fit. No delegate disagreed with this view.
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