356 J.-A. PEMBERTON
had previously been held: Paris.^18 The instruction of the secretariat proba-
bly explains why the ISC’s program committee, which had been elected at
Bergen, and its executive committee met at the Hague on December 21
and 22 respectively, rather than at the Palais Royal offices of its secretariat
as was customary. The purpose of these meetings was to discuss the study
programme that had been drawn up by the conference’s new general-
rapporteur Pitman B. Potter. The instruction of the secretariat also may
explain why on February 15, 1940, the ISC’s conference bureau (which
comprised Davis, who remained chair of the ISC’s executive committee,
Bonnet, now the conference’s secretary and Potter), gathered in Geneva
in order to review the work completed by conference members thus far
on the topic chosen at Bergen for the ISC’s next study-cycle: International
Organisation, its Forms, its Possibilities and its Limits.^19
At its February meeting, the conference bureau endorsed Potter’s
proposal that a number of international experts be invited to submit
reports on some of the more specific or specialist topics mentioned in
the programme of study or which had otherwise been suggested. A list
of these topics and of the names of proposed experts had been forwarded
by Potter to Bonnet on January 20. Among the names Potter listed was
that of Rappard, whom Potter thought might be invited to discuss the
economic breakdown of the League. At the same time, Potter suggested
to Bonnet that were Rappard not available, it might be a good opportu-
nity to seek an Italian contribution. In this regard, Potter put forward
the name Francesco Vito, a person whom he described as a ‘competent
economist, on good terms with his Government but occupying a rather
independent position at the Catholic University of Milan’.^20
Vito, who had contributed a paper to the 1932 session of what was
then called the CISSIR in Milan, was by this time a member of the
(^18) Renoliet, L’UNESCO oubliée, 149.
(^19) International Studies Conference: Informal (Fourteenth) Meeting of the Executive
Committee and Members of the Conference, London, Sunday, November 18, 1945:
International Studies Conference, 1939–1945: Report by the Secretary-General, Comité
exécutif à partir du 1er septembre 1937–décembre 1946, AG 1-IICI-K-I-2, and Institut
Internationale de la Coopération Intellectuelle, L’Institut Internationale de la Coopération
Intellectuelle: 1925– 1946 , 294–95.
(^20) International Studies Conference: Informal (Fourteenth) Meeting of the Executive
Committee and Members of the Conference, London, Sunday, November 18, 1945,
International Studies Conference, 1939–1945: Report by the Secretary-General, AG 1-IICI-
K-I-2, and Pitman B. Potter to Henri Bonnet, January 20, 1940, AG 1-IICI-K-I-24, UA.