500.A15a3/1270: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation on the Preparatory Commission (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 14—10:40 a.m.]
20. I received a call this evening from Craigie, who stated that he sees, from his various conversations, three possibilities to the solution of the naval difficulty between France and Italy. He enumerated them in order of preference as follows:
- First point: Tonnage agreement which will enable the five-power treaty to be entered.
- Second point: Building program unilateral declarations—the possibility that after such declarations the treaty might be entered on building programs alone without translating the figures into tonnage levels, the disparity of total tonnages of the two fleets thus not being thrown into relief, was not excluded by him.
- Third point: The treaty to be entered by France after a level acceptable to the three signatories has been worked out; this should be envisaged only if agreeable to Italy, in his opinion.
The first point, obviously the most desirable, is the one on which efforts are now being concentrated, and various possibilities are being explored which do not warrant detailed report since they are too [Page 180] nebulous as yet. We cannot, however, be sure that at any time an abrupt turn in the direction of the third point will not take place. The procedure to be followed if this should materialize is being envisaged by us.
It is plain from Rosso’s remarks, and those of other Italians here, that the Italian Government is nervous over press reports of such an impending change in events and it fears that French entrance into the treaty, if she lays down figures agreeable to Britain, will enable her to veto adherence by Italy except on France’s terms, for the reason that the other three Powers naturally, without the consent of the fourth party to the treaty, could not admit Italy. If France is admitted and Italy later requests admission on the same tonnage levels, it seems to us that the position of the three original signatories might become embarrassing. In case they should agree to France’s veto on Italian admission, they run the risk of seeming to favor France by making themselves judges of the issue of parity; they would be accused, on the other hand, of deciding in favor of Italy in case they should bring pressure on France to admit Italy on similar terms.
It is difficult to envisage a situation in which France can accept the treaty without aggravating the situation with Italy, after direct agreement has failed. We feel that it would be a mistake, no matter how important and desirable it may be to complete the five-power agreement, for us to lose sight of the fact, which we have consistently maintained, that naval limitation is a continuing process and that we have a general interest in bringing all five naval powers back into succeeding conferences both confidently and willingly.
We have kept these misgivings to ourselves, reporting them to you only to give you the whole picture as our conversations have shown it to us. We have been careful in talking with the Italians not to dispel their anxiety that, should other efforts fail, the above possibility exists.