500.A15a3/1
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton)
Sir: In the course of a conversation on May 9, the British Ambassador stated that he had understood me as saying that future discussions concerning Ambassador Gibson’s recent naval proposals1 would stand a better chance of success if they were placed under the control of civilians rather than naval experts. He added that he had agreed with that himself but had not felt free to write to the Foreign Office about it; he would like to do so now, however, if I had no objection. I told him that my view in general was as he had described it, but I was careful to explain that it did not have reference to any particular individuals or to any recent occurrences; on the contrary, I had definitely heard that the relations between Admiral Jones on our side and the corresponding British Admiral in the Three-Power Conference2 had been extremely satisfactory; we had no doubt, however, that in general the service man was bound to look at these questions from the standpoint of a possible war between Great Britain and the United States and to make his plans accordingly, while the civilian statesman representing the people of the country might be able and willing to take chances which the professional service man could not take. He said he agreed with me perfectly and understood what I meant.
He asked me whether I thought that was the attitude of the President and I told him I thought it was. He said that was very encouraging. He asked me for my opinion as to the prospects for the future. I told him we are earnestly hoping to make progress in the line of actual reduction; that anybody who looked at the cost of modern battleships could not help being appalled by the expense. He joined in most emphatically, saying that when we realize that the cost of building a modern cruiser was more than that of the Library of Congress, it seemed a perfectly dreadful waste of money which could otherwise be used for constructive purposes.
In discussing the prospects for the future, I informed him that I had heard that the British representatives, prior to the Three-Power [Page 113] Conference, had made a study of what they thought were their naval requirements to cover all the trade routes of the Empire and had determined the minimum strength below which they would not go. I said that if this was their position, it would appear to destroy the possibility of reduction on the basis of parity and that I did not see how the British could reach any such position without considering us as a potential enemy. Sir Esme replied that he was not aware of any such position having been maintained by his Government and did not believe that any reports to that effect could be accurate. He agreed that it was wholly inconsistent with the idea of reduction and repeated that he did not think that they had ever fixed an irreducible minimum. He himself thought that the standards of one nation necessarily depended upon the standards of the other.
I am [etc.]
- See Ambassador Gibson’s address of April 22, 1929, p. 91.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1927, vol. i pp. 1 ff.↩