Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1937, General, Volume I

600.0031 World Program/142

Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)¹³

[Washington,] June 25, 1937.

At Mr. Van Zeeland’s suggestion and in order to avoid publicity, I went this morning to the Belgian Embassy, where I talked with the Prime Minister for about an hour.

The Prime Minister covered about the same field of discussion which he covered in his conversations with the Secretary of State on Thursday.

Mr. Van Zeeland told me that it appeared to him that there were now two alternatives before him. The first was, upon his return to Europe, to advise the French and British Governments that the Government of the United States was disposed to cooperate in every feasible manner in the field of limitation of armaments; to cooperate with the Governments of Europe which were prepared to go along with it in the trade policy initiated and proclaimed by the United States; and, finally, to cooperate in measures tending towards financial stabilization such as those already embodied in the tripartite understanding. Mr. Van Zeeland said that, while the assurances which he could give along these lines would be encouraging, all these facts as to the attitude of the United States were already known and appreciated in London and in Paris, and it could hardly be assumed that any practical results would be forthcoming as a consequence of his visit to the United States.

He said, and in this opinion I strongly concurred, that it would hardly be possible for the peoples in Europe as well as on this continent to maintain very much longer unimpaired their faith in the principles which his government and our government were supporting unless the peoples began to believe that these principles were productive of concrete achievement.

The second alternative, he said, was for him to take with him a definite program, which he formulated along these lines:

(a) A meeting in the immediate future of representatives of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland—in other words, the nations now supporting the principles embodied in the tripartite agreement—for the purpose of considering and agreeing upon certain steps which they might jointly or simultaneously take in order to advance disarmament, monetary stabilization, and the furtherance of the United States liberal trade policy. He emphasized that this meeting should be entirely informal and that it should be publicly understood that these representatives were meeting with no prior commitments and for the sole purpose of agreeing upon a program which would be open to the adherence of every nation of the world. On the disarmament question, he felt that an agreement could there be found which would involve the commitment on the part of the nations represented to refrain from bombing from the air. In the field of a liberal trade program, he felt that an agreement could be found for the extension and development of the policies already pursued by Belgium and the United States and he envisaged the possibility that some multilateral agreement in the nature of the Oslo agreement¹⁴ might be had. In the field of monetary stabilization, he felt that probably the six nations represented had already gone as far as they could under present conditions, but that it might be possible to find ways and means of going further.

I stated to Mr. Van Zeeland that it seemed to me that should such a meeting be possible from the standpoint of this Government, two conditions precedent were indispensable prerequisites: First, the positive engagement on the part of the United Kingdom that she would join with the United States by act and not only by word in the reciprocal trade program and, second, that any such meeting would appear to me not only to be futile but even dangerous, because of the disillusion which its failure would occasion, unless the governments taking part in such an exchange of views had definitely agreed through diplomatic channels beforehand upon certain concrete steps which could be formally confirmed at the suggested meeting.

The Prime Minister said that he was entirely in accord with this point of view.

As a second future step, the Prime Minister said that he would urge, once an agreement had been found at the suggested meeting, that the agreements there formulated be communicated to certain other powers and in particular Germany and Italy, in order that a second informal meeting might be had at which the original six nations would be represented together with representatives of the other powers which might be later determined upon.

I asked the Prime Minister what specific steps he had in mind as those which could be taken at this second meeting. As to this phase of the problem he said he could hardly venture to prophesy. He told me, however, of the conversations had, both by himself and by his representatives, in Germany and in Italy and expressed a very great measure of optimism as to the attitude which those governments would probably adopt, particularly if they saw a reasonable chance that such agreements opened the way to more normal trade between their countries and the rest of the world.

At this point Mr. Van Zeeland said that he recognized fully that the general assumption in the United States was that credits from the United States would be required before Germany and Italy could be persuaded to terminate their present autarchic system. He said that he was confident that this was not the case. He expressed the belief that the minute that some broad advance could be made in Europe towards the achievement of a normal flow of trade between countries, and the minute confidence began to return that disarmament and peace were within the grasp of Europe, capital which had now taken flight from Europe would return and that all the credits which might be necessary to ease Germany and Italy through the transition period would be available from European sources. He said, of course, that this did not imply that private American capital should not have equal opportunity for investment should it be desired, but that it was by no means required.

I purposely refrain from making this memorandum any longer for I feel sure Mr. Van Zeeland has covered the whole field in considerable detail with the President and with the Secretary of State. In view, however, of the fact that Mr. Van Zeeland will only be in Washington next Tuesday¹⁵ and will be sailing immediately thereafter on his return trip to Europe, I venture to suggest that the President and yourself may wish to consider making two decisions before Mr. Van Zeeland returns on Tuesday.

1. Whether it would not be highly desirable for some statement to be issued by the President and by Mr. Van Zeeland which, without going into details, might yet strike a note of optimism and indicate that Mr. Van Zeeland’s visit here has been productive of more than a mere giving and receiving of information.

2. The confidential expression to Mr. Van Zeeland of the willingness of this Government to have a representative attend the preliminary meeting of the representatives of the countries now in the monetary agreement suggested provided the two conditions precedent above mentioned have been met, with the understanding that the people of this country will be given clearly to understand that the sole purpose of the meeting is to discuss the ways and means of advancing military and economic disarmament, and that this Government would not participate in the discussion of any point upon the agenda of a directly political nature.

Mr. Van Zeeland told me confidentially, and said he could not recall whether he had mentioned this to the President and to the Secretary of State, that he had cabled to London since his arrival in Washington stating that he would stop in London on his return to Brussels in order to confer with Mr. Chamberlain¹⁶ and with Mr. Eden.

13. A copy of this memorandum was sent to the Secretary of State, who was then with President Roosevelt at Jefferson Island, in Chesapeake Bay, with the suggestion that the Secretary take it up with the President before their return to Washington.
14. Signed May 28, 1937, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. clxxx, p. 5; for correspondence regarding this agreement see pp. 803 ff.
15. June 29.
16. Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister.