500.A15a3/787b: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation (Stimson)
259. E. T. Stone, whose residence is given as 8 Park Place, St. James, London, has cabled to persons having a connection with the Foreign Policy Association that important members of your staff have given him information to the effect that dissatisfaction exists among the members of the delegation due to their not having received from the President constructive support, and that it is felt by them [Page 82] that if he would follow the recommendations as to a consultative pact, etc., made by the American delegation, he could save the situation with the French.
We have stopped a move of the Foreign Policy Association to call a general meeting in New York for the purpose of protesting the action of the Administration and the President.
The advices in your No. 156, March 23, strictly contradict the foregoing. We believe that the whole idea of such a pact has been originated by those New York groups who have been trying to secure its advancement at the Conference. They have used propaganda here, and we think that some of the French delegation have contacts with Stone or other agents of theirs and from them have gotten some encouragement. Through such correspondents as James99 and Mowrer these ideas have filtered back to the United States. Would it not be advisable for you or Morrow, or some other member of your delegation, to talk with Stone, giving him the facts which you have given us, and endeavor to find out which member of your staff has been giving out information which is being used against the work of the delegation and the Administration.
We think that dangerous ground is being trodden both in the interests of our country and delegation by outside groups who take it upon themselves to put forth ideas and to establish activities with other governments.
The President today, because of this agitation, stated to the press, not for publication nor to be attributed to any authority, that no government represented at the Conference had proposed a consultative pact to the United States. He said that the terms advocated by outside groups for such a pact would not reduce tonnage at all and that other governments know fully that the United States cannot enter any pact which implied either directly or indirectly the use of naval forces; that the pacts proposed by these groups were not of this nature and the situation was not met or assisted by them; and that it was an entirely unwarranted belief on their part that the United States’ offering of such a pact would secure reduction of tonnage.
- Edwin Leland James, press correspondent for the New York Times.↩