Letter to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee About the Lausanne Agreements.
My dear Mr. Senator:
I have your inquiry this morning, through Secretary Stimson, as to the effect on the United States of recent agreements in Europe.
Our people are, of course, gratified at the settlement of the strictly European problem of reparations or any of the other political or economic questions that have impeded European recovery. Such action, together with the real progress in disarmament, will contribute greatly to world stability.
I wish to make it absolutely clear, however, that the United States has not been consulted regarding any of the agreements reported by the press to have been concluded recently at Lausanne and that of course it is not a party to, nor in any way committed to any such agreements.
While I do not assume it to be the purpose of any of these agreements to effect combined action of our debtors, if it shall be so interpreted then I do not propose that the American people shall be pressed into any line of action or that our policies shall be in any way influenced by such a combination either open or implied.
Yours faithfully,
HERBERT HOOVER
[The Honorable William E. Borah, United States Senate ]
Note: On July 9, 1932, representatives of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, meeting at Lausanne, Switzerland, reached an agreement under which the German reparation debt was reduced to 3 billion marks. Ratification of the agreement was made conditional on a satisfactory agreement between the signatory powers and their creditors.
Herbert Hoover, Letter to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee About the Lausanne Agreements. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/207199