500.A15 a 1/94
The Acting Secretary of State to the Japanese Ambassador (Matsudaira)23
Excellency: With reference to the Memorandum handed by the American Ambassador to the Imperial Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, February 10, 1927, regarding the possibility of the initiation of negotiations at Geneva concerning the limitation of naval armament between the representatives of the Powers Signatories of the Washington Treaty of 1922, my Government is pleased to learn as the result of informal conversations that the Imperial Japanese Government is willing to participate in negotiations with the United States and Great Britain.
The American Government regrets that France and Italy should have formally refused the President’s invitation and shares the opinion of the Imperial Japanese Government that their presence would be most welcome at such a conference. This Government sincerely hopes, therefore, that they may decide to be represented at least in some informal manner at the conversation contemplated.
These conversations, it now appears, could most advantageously and conveniently begin at Geneva on the first day of June, or soon thereafter.
Accept [etc.]
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date to the British Ambassador.↩