Abstract
When President Gerald Ford signed the instruments of ratification for the Geneva Protocol of 1925 on January 22, 1975, a tortured, half-century-long chapter in U.S. arms control policy was brought to a close. Fifty years earlier, at the Geneva Conference for the Control of the International Trade in Arms, Munitions and Implements of War, the United States had played a key role in drafting and reaching agreement on the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. The protocol, signed by thirty nations, including the United States, on June 17, 1925, prohibits “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices” as well as “the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.” Despite the unreserved support of the Coolidge administration for the protocol, after heavy lobbying by the U.S. Army’s Chemical Warfare Service (cws), the chemical industry, and veterans organizations, the Senate declined action on the treaty without a formal vote. It would be approximately forty-five years before the Senate had another opportunity to advise and consent to ratification of the protocol.
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© 1991 Henry L. Stimson Center
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McElroy, R.J. (1991). The Geneva Protocol of 1925. In: Krepon, M., Caldwell, D. (eds) The Politics of Arms Control Treaty Ratification. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-04534-8_4
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