500.A15/1067a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Forbes)

[Paraphrase]

190. Yesterday I had a conversation with the Japanese Ambassador which was based on conferences with the President and our delegates [Page 139] to the Preparatory Commission.47 I summarize the conversation as follows, for your information:

I told the Ambassador that the failure of France and Italy to make any progress in their naval negotiations troubled me. If progress were not made before the meeting of the Preparatory Commission, I felt that the likelihood would be very great that something would be said or done at the forthcoming session of the Commission which afterward would make a solution of the issue between the two countries more difficult or impossible. I feared that something might be said at any moment, furthermore, particularly on the part of France, which might make the granting of any concession more difficult for her.

What was required on France’s part, I pointed out, was reduction in her naval program to which she had adhered continuously since 1924; and that what was required on the part of Italy was that she should refrain from insisting upon diplomatic victory for a theoretical parity to which she did not intend to build. Such a deadlock, it seemed to me, ought to be comparatively simple of solution. If France continued to insist rigidly upon her 1924 naval program, she would make it almost certain that Great Britain would have to invoke the so-called “escalator” clause in the London Naval Treaty and increase the British fleet; this action on Britain’s part would make it probable that we and the Japanese should have to do likewise. It seemed to me that France would be taking a very grave responsibility if, at a time when all the rest of us were cutting down our navies, she would go ahead and build up a navy to such an extent that she would force the breaking of the Naval Treaty. I could not believe that France would wish to run the risk of such adverse world opinion as this course on her part would be sure to arouse.

As for the Italians, they admitted frankly that they did not wish to build up to a theoretical parity with France. The difficulty ought easily to be solved, therefore, by a modus Vivendi until 1936. I told Mr. Debuchi that my suggestion would be that the two Powers in question should agree not to agree on theory, but that each should make a unilateral announcement of a reasonable program of naval construction until 1936, all questions of mutual parity or of superiority being reserved until after 1936.

Debuchi repeated my propositions after me carefully. He asked me whether it was our intention to go ahead by ourselves or to await an answer from Japan. I told the Ambassador that I was not seeking to force any joint action, but that in view of the pressure of time I felt that I should go ahead in the very near future; and I hoped that [Page 140] if Baron Shidehara48 agreed with me in my views he might do something of the same sort.

I told Debuchi that I was sending a similar message to the British Ambassador, and that I hoped to talk with the French and the Italian Ambassadors in the very near future. Debuchi thanked me for my action in notifying Japan, and said that he would communicate with his Government.

Stimson
  1. Hugh S. Gibson, Ambassador to Belgium, and Hugh R. Wilson, Minister to Switzerland. See pp. 187 ff.
  2. Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.