500.A15a3/162: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)
243. You will please communicate the following to the Prime Minister:
In respect to our cablegram 242 the President trusts that the Prime Minister will realize the very great advantage from the President’s point of view in planning an agreement which will carry the enthusiastic and cordial support of our naval board. He understands that the Prime Minister is in exactly the same position with the Admiralty.
The final result of our cable 242 is that the Prime Minister’s technical experts and ours are apart on only one point and on that point are not far apart. This particular point is represented by the question as to whether three of the American cruisers are to be of the 8-inch 10,000 ton type or whether there is to be a substitution for them of say four cruisers of the 6-inch gun type.
Or, in the more recent view of the Prime Minister, your 266, four, the question as to whether these three cruisers of 10,000 tons are to have 8-inch guns or 6-inch guns mounted on them.
The Prime Minister will note that neither we nor our Naval Board have suggested any alteration in the Prime Minister’s proposal for the British fleet so that altogether out of the perfected set-up covering in all categories perhaps 1,200,000 tons in each of our respective fleets, we are down to this small difference.
The President thinks that when we consider all these things and realize that the items we are discussing are so small a percentage of our total difficulties and that we are developing the greatest problem in statesmanship of our times; and when we realize how strongly the people behind us desire disarmament and peace, he feels sure that we could between the two governments compromise these small differences.
The President earnestly wishes Mr. MacDonald to visit the United States.