500.A15a3/130: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Belgium (Gibson)
57. In Dawes’ 242 to us Prime Minister says
“I have been working upon the prospects held out at Geneva. My papers record that on the twenty-third ultimo April Mr. Gibson informed our delegate at Geneva that the plan then suggested would give the American navy superiority over the British of one or two 10,000 eight inch cruisers and give the British navy superiority over America of some thirty 6,400 ton six inch cruisers. That I have met generously.”
Please inform us if you said it, or what you said. Are we correct in assuming that if you said anything like that you are counting four Hawkins as practically equivalent to three 10,000 ton cruisers and that you were limiting your British replacement program to the then announced building program?