-10- to assume such responsibility, and that was the United States. I said that as he knew this was a field for conjecture outside of the strict limitations of my mission, but that I felt I would be remiss if I did not give him immediately my own personal feeling on this point, and that I believed I was entirely accurate in expressing the views of my own Government, and of the American people, when I said that the United States would not; assume any responsibility of this character which implied as a potential obligation the utilization of American military strength in preserving the peace of Europe. I said that that determination on the part of the American people had been made clear time and again in the course of the history of American policy in the last twenty years. On the other hand, I said, I thought that it was conceivable that if some practical plan for the gradual, progressive, reduction of armaments in Europe was agreed upon by the European Powers, and they desired to create commissions composed in part of neutral representatives in order to insure the faithful compliance with the reduction of armament agreements which might be reached, the Government of the United States in its desire to further a real and lasting peace in Europe, and in the world, might agree to the utilization of American citizens in such a capacity, but always with the clear understanding that the service of American citizens in such capacity did not involve in any sense an obligation on the part of the United States to see that the parties to such an agreement lived up to their obligations. M. Daladier |