500.A15A4/1550: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon)
273. Your 297, October 17, 5 p.m., 301, October 19, 6 p.m., 302, October 19, 8 p.m. and 305, October 20, 3 p.m.81 For Norman Davis. Your telegrams have required so much study that I am not as yet prepared to send you a full and final statement of my views. This message however will serve as a guide to you during your talks at Chequers over the weekend and I shall try to follow it with a more detailed message some time next week.
Dealing first with naval questions. There has of course been no time as yet to receive any opinion from the Navy Department concerning the general tenor of the memorandum you submitted. Apart from technical considerations which may later be sent you, I fear that any publicity might have a serious effect here, in that the memorandum leaves aside all provisions of the Hoover Plan, involving present reduction of naval armaments, and confines itself to the British thesis of dealing exclusively with future replacements. The merits of the plan are such that they would only appeal to the public (and I believe to a large section of the Navy itself) after a prolonged campaign of education. I therefore trust that you will be doubly careful to keep the matter completely confidential and, it goes without saying, to avoid committing yourself in any way as to the acceptability of the proposals.
With regard to the general disarmament situation I am encouraged that you, being on the ground and with close contacts with European statesmen, feel optimistic as to the eventual acceptance of the President’s plan, and do not wish in any way to discourage your best efforts. Nevertheless from this distance I have constantly envisaged the probability of a Japanese veto on all affirmative decisions and more recently the attitude of Germany has seemed to me to place a new obstacle in the path of actual accomplishment. In these circumstances I cannot help regarding the preservation of the world’s [Page 468] peace machinery (i.e. the sanctity of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Nine Power Pact, etc.) as a problem of more immediate practical concern to us than a limited agreement on certain phases of disarmament. In this connection, two considerations assume especial importance: (a) the preservation of close relations with France and (b) the prevention of any open clash with Germany on the subject of the Treaty of Versailles at least until after the Manchurian question has been dealt with at Geneva. Only thus can we be sure of preventing Germany and Japan from lining up together at Geneva with disastrous consequences to the future of the peace treaties above referred to.
I am glad to authorize your participation in any preliminary discussions which may be entered into to promote the work of the Disarmament Conference, and in such discussions I agree with you that you should participate fully and not in the role of an observer. There is however an ever present danger that such discussions may almost imperceptibly shift from pure disarmament into European politics. I trust your judgment implicitly in keeping us out of any dangerous phase of the conversations and meanwhile rely on you to keep me fully posted.