500.A15a3/1225: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Italy (Garrett)
95. For Gibson. Constantine Brown, correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, has reported to me, from a conversation he had had with the French Naval Attaché here, Sablé, that the British had intervened in the French-Italian naval negotiations with a suggestion which Tardieu had been advised by the French Naval Staff would make a satisfactory solution of the problem and upon which, as a basis, negotiations between the French and the Italians could be resumed.
Essential feature of the reported suggestion was that the French had been persuaded that by building three battle cruisers of 22,000 tons each, with 13-inch guns and speed of 34 knots, as they can do under the Washington Treaty, the superiority they desire can be obtained; while at the same time the Italians who do not wish to build such ships can rest on the theoretical parity given them by the same treaty.
The Naval Attaché is reported to have said, however, that the French would require a definite private understanding with Mussolini that Italy would not build. Were this arrangement made, the auxiliary tonnage would remain on basis suggested last summer by the Italians.