284 J.-A. PEMBERTON
as it sought to seriously test those claims, was bound to ‘read like literature
of a former age.’ Indeed, Moresco claimed that the study’s remaining util-
ity largely concerned the fact that it provided a historical record of how a
range of experts viewed colonial problems and peace in the period between
1935 and 1937 and in this he was undoubtedly right.^148
eArly tHougHts on tHe orgAnisAtion of PeAce
The administrative council of the IIIC had decided in April 1939 that
should war eventuate it would do its best to maintain its technical activ-
ities and the lines connecting intellectual activity throughout the world.
This commitment on the part of the IIIC was restated by Bonnet soon
after the outbreak of hostilities. In regard to the ISC, its preparations for
its next study cycle commenced on October 15 when Bonnet began liais-
ing with the person who was to become the general rapporteur for that
cycle: Pitman B. Potter.^149 Since 1930, Potter had been professor of inter-
national organisation at the Graduate Institute of International Studies. A
keen student of the LON, he had served in 1935 as legal adviser to the
Ethiopian government and as a member of the Italo-Ethiopian Arbitration
Commission. Potter had attended the Bergen conference as a representative
of the Graduate Institute of International Studies and had recently replaced
Remer as director of the GRC. Like other organisations concerned with the
study of international affairs such as the New Commonwealth Society, the
centre had upon the outbreak of war immediately launched an investigation
into problems of international reorganisation.^150
Potter had prepared a detailed programme of study for the ISC and
this was adopted by its programme committee and approved by its exec-
utive committee at a meeting at the Hague on December 21 and 22,
1939.^151 Among the many topics Potter suggested for consideration by
(^148) Ibid., 14.
(^149) ‘Note,’ Informations sur la Coopération Intellectuelle (a), nos. 1–2 (1939): 1–2, and
Bonnet to Hall, October 14, 1939, AG 1-IICI-B-V-10, UA.
(^150) Pitman B. Potter to Henri Bonnet, 4 and 12 October 1939, Geneva Research Centre,
à parter du 1er juin 1939, AG 1ICI—K-I-16.b. For Pitman B. Potter’s background, see
Potter, ‘League Publicity: Cause or Effect of League Failure,’ 399.
(^151) Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, L’Institut Internationale de
la Coopération Intellectuelle: 1925–1946, 294. For Potter’s programme of study, see
International Studies Conference: Suggested Study Programme, November, 1939, AG
1-IICI-K-I-24, UA.