2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 127John Boardman Whitton was appointed director of the reconstituted
GRC and although his year-long tenure did not formally commence
until September 1, 1936, he arrived in Geneva in June in order to con-
duct an examination of the GRC’s situation. Soon after that examina-
tion was complete, Whitton reported to the European representatives
of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment, namely,
to Tracey Barrett Kittredge and Davis respectively. Whitton then made
contact with the Graduate Institute of International Studies, discussing
with William E. Rappard, the institute’s co-founder and co-director,
plans for collaboration between the institute and the GRC. Against the
background of the discussion of these plans for collaboration, Rappard
offered Whitton a professorship in the field of international law.^149 On
assuming his official role at the GRC, Whitton immediately entered
into close collaboration with the ISC in his capacity as a representative
of the European Centre of the Carnegie Endowment. He conferred fre-
quently with Bonnet, Bourquin and Gross, this last having been charged
with developing the relations between the institutions representing the
ISC. The result of these talks was the aforementioned ‘Conference on
Solutions’ and the preparation of the following: a study of ‘what had
been attempted or accomplished by the League of Nations with respect
to raw materials’; a study of those ‘international conventions which con-
tain provision for their own revision, modification or termination’; and a
historical and juridical analysis of the changes which the Peace Treaties of
1919–1920 had already undergone.^150
Whitton then proceeded to visit ten European countries in order to
establish contacts with national research institutions and the national
coordinating committees of the ISC. On these visits, Whitton was
accompanied by Raymond Leslie Buell, the president of the American
Foreign Policy Association. The latter, along with several other members
(^149) Geneva Research Centre, Report by the Director to the Governing Board, December
14, 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-V-3, UA. International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change:
Procedures, Population, Raw Materials, Colonies, 631. In the proceedings of the tenth
conference of the ISC, John Boardman Whitton is described as follows: ‘Director of the
Geneva Research Centre; Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of
International Studies, Geneva, and at Princeton University.’
(^150) Geneva Research Centre, Report by the Director to the Governing Board, December
14, 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-V-3, UA. See also Tracey B. Kittredge to Leo Gross, 18 August
1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-16.a, UA.