500.A15 a 1/384: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
69. Should there be absolute inability to agree and consequent breaking up of the Conference in spite of our sincere endeavors to arrive at an agreement, it is important that we should not be unprepared to deal with the situation thus created; and should this eventuality occur, we have, after careful study, worked out the following line of action which we beg to submit for your consideration:
Should the closing of the Conference become inevitable as a result of the uncompromising stand of Great Britain in the matter of vastly increased cruiser tonnage, we would suggest, in the first place, a private [Page 81] conversation with the chief delegates in order to bring out strongly the fact that the promotion of good understanding between Great Britain, Japan, and ourselves constituted the basic object of the President in convening the Conference; that such an understanding was to the highest interests of all of us and that no other factors should permit us to forget this; that therefore a public session be held to give out frankly and impartially the news of the breaking up of the Conference; and that each delegation should be free to set forth in any manner it pleased its own particular difficulties and the reasons which rendered the agreement impossible.
Should this procedure be acceptable, I would, with your approval, repeat in the strongest terms the basic wish of the United States to foster amity between the three powers and our disinclination to permit our friendly relations to be in any way diminished by the failure to reach an accord at Geneva; that if our respective viewpoints were published in an amicable way so that the questions could be studied in the coming four years by public opinion which might assist in finding an answer thereto, the Conference would not have been held in vain; that the opinion of our delegation was that a basic divergence in our concept of maritime armaments and not a mere difference of opinion as to technical matters was the cause of our inability to agree; that we believe the naval necessities of one country to be conditioned upon the strength of other nations, whereas the British consider maritime requirements to be absolute and not proportioned upon the armaments of other powers; that no Conference would in our view be necessary should the British conception be correct, since, according to it, each nation would decide upon its own absolute requirements and no abatement or reconsideration of these needs could be entertained; that our view, however, of relative naval requirements, in which the Japanese concur, permits a mutual downward revision so far as possible with proper regard to the fleets of those powers not party to the treaty and that it was upon the cruiser tonnage level that our insistence lay. The strength maintained by any one of the three powers concerned would necessitate readjustments by the other powers in corresponding measure; that viewed from this standpoint, the insistence of the British delegation upon high levels of tonnage in cruisers would revise our needs automatically upward to such an extent that no real limitation would be achieved but, rather, should a treaty result, a program of naval expansion would be legalized; that while the American delegation would be glad to sign a treaty which could be defended as providing for limitation, it was our opinion that it would be more honest to the American people and to the world, and more likely to promote intelligent consideration of naval questions, to dissolve the Conference [Page 82] without arriving at an accord rather than to reach an agreement providing for a limitation which would not be genuine.
We should be able in conclusion to evidence a proper appreciation of the attitude maintained by the different delegates during the Conference and could indicate the hope that those views which all of them had set forth would in any event bring about the stimulation of our different nations to view in a friendly manner each other’s problems and to work out some equitable and sensible limitation or reduction of naval armaments before the 1931 Conference.
- Telegram in two sections.↩