500.A15 a 1/413: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 12—12:37 p.m.]
81. After postponement of plenary session I called this morning on Viscount Ishii to discuss several matters. Among others I urged him to indicate clearly both to us and to British how far the British would have to come down to reach a level which would afford a [Page 95] profitable basis of discussion to Japanese. Ishii stated that he had this morning informed Bridgeman in definite terms that the Japanese were practically rigid on figure of 450,000 tons for cruisers and destroyers combined for United States and Great Britain. Ishii said that Japanese delegation felt very strongly on subject; they were quite willing at present moment to return home without an agreement, if necessary, but that they were not willing to conclude agreement which would call for program of naval expansion.
Bridgeman called on me after lunch in a much more conciliatory mood than he has shown heretofore. He said that he felt a plenary session on Thursday was needed in order to state British position as he was under serious home criticism on account of the general misrepresentation of the British attitude abroad. Bridgeman assured me that he would confine himself to statement of British case and would take no action which could be considered provocative. He would ask no questions or he might ask certain general questions which would not be embarrassing and which I could answer or not as I chose. I said that I thought this was the preferable way when we were endeavoring to arrive at a working agreement, but that if he set pace I was quite ready for plain talking. I told him that I thought it was regrettable that we should consume both our time and energy in trying to find a common British-American basis of agreement if, after we reached it, it was not acceptable to the Japanese, and that we ought to have clearly understood what levels would prove acceptable to the Japanese; once there was agreement between British and Japanese on tonnage levels it would probably not be difficult for us to make agreement complete. Bridgeman replied that Anglo-Japanese agreement would present no difficulty as the Japanese would come up to the, British figures, only they would demand a quid pro quo and he had not yet been able to ascertain from them what it would be. I said that Viscount Ishii had stressed fact that Japanese would rather have no agreement than to revise materially their figures but Bridgeman said he did not regard that seriously.
Later on in day Saburi of the Japanese delegation came to see me. I asked him if his delegation had fully impressed on the British the fact that Japanese were in earnest about their tonnage levels figures. Saburi said that they had, and he repeated that the Japanese would rather go home without an agreement than materially to revise these figures upward. He then added significant remark that if our delegation could reach agreement with British on high tonnage level and cared to conclude a treaty with them, no objection would be offered by Japan but that she should not care to become a party to such a treaty.
Delegation feels that our efforts now should be directed to concentrating attention on need for finding common ground for agreement [Page 96] between Japanese and British, and emphasizing consistently our preference for Japanese levels. Unless the two extreme positions can be reconciled, and until they are reconciled, British-American negotiation is fruitless. At present our delegation proposes to make a British-Japanese agreement our objective, and we feel that you may wish to impress on both the other parties to this Conference the necessity for their finding common ground for discussion.
A copy of this telegram has been sent by mail to London.