500.A15/271: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (MacVeagh)95
44. In view of misinterpretations carried in press this morning of statements made by “White House Spokesman” yesterday afternoon there is sent for use at your discretion but not for verbatim publicity minutes taken of that statement.
“The Spokesman said that he had noted reports in the press of suggestions made in Japanese quarters in Geneva that there be held in Washington another naval limitation conference, participated in by Japan, Great Britain and the United States. These suggestions, the President presumes, were made entirely on the authority of the Japanese people who made them and the suggestions were made without consulting this Government. There is very little that he could say about that suggestion at the present time. At some other time or under some other circumstances the President might view a suggestion of this kind with considerable sympathy, but at the present time this Government has committed itself to the conference that is now in session. If now we should begin to talk about some other conference to consider questions that are already being considered by this conference, the President is inclined to think it would very seriously impair the prospects of any successful and practical conclusion being reached by this conference. The President, it was explained, did not say this in criticism of what the Japanese have said, but if we were to join in and participate and endorse another conference he should think the other Governments assembled would say “what is the use of going on with this conference?” The attitude of this Government is to do everything it possibly can do to make the present conference a success. The interested governments are all assembled there. It has taken a considerable time to secure that result. Everything that can possibly [Page 106] be done to work out a practicable solution of some limitation of naval armament and land armament should be done at this present conference. The President has such strong hope and so much confidence that there can be practical solutions that he thinks it would not be helpful for him to make any comment or to make any suggestion or join in any suggestion that we have in contemplation the calling of a conference in Washington.”
- Sent also to the American delegation at Geneva as Department’s No. 5.↩