033.4111MacDonald, Ramsay/20

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)

No. 15

Sir: The British Ambassador called on me June 20th to talk about the proposed visit of Prime Minister MacDonald. He said that his own view was that it would be a very good thing to get Mr. MacDonald and President Hoover in personal contact. When I mentioned the difficulties which might be caused by hostile criticism in the press and in case they did not dispose of all subjects of interest in controversy between the two nations at their interview, which would of course be quite impossible, he said he hoped that they could at least discuss and perhaps settle the arbitration treaty matter2 and that while it was of course impossible that they could settle all of the details of the naval disarmament matter they might announce that they had reached an agreement in principle and were leaving the details to be worked out by others. He thought that this would take the sting out of the press. He also suggested that the press might be prepared beforehand in order to forestall criticism.

I am [etc.]

H. L. Stimson