500.A15A4 General Committee/341: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham)
95. For Norman Davis. Wilson’s 629, May 4, 2 a.m.76 Henderson is, in effect, asking us to state our absolute figures regardless of what other Non-European countries may submit. This contradicts our basic position that all armaments (with the exception of effectives necessary for the maintenance of internal order) are relative. I do not see how we can be expected to determine our requirements as to numbers of effectives in the absence of any possibility of correlating them with those of other Non-European countries whose armaments are of concern to us. Without such an opportunity, we cannot logically offer anything but figures based on legal strength which would be subject to a greater or lesser reduction according to what other countries, particularly Non-European, finally agree to, and would in no case exceed (assuming a similar position on the part of Japan) the highest number authorized for a European Power.
Inasmuch as our legal strength figures in proportion to population are lower than the lowest figure given any European country in the British table, they could not with justice be challenged. Furthermore, we do not think that the submission of figures based on the National Defense Act77 would disturb American public opinion. On the contrary, it would undoubtedly be viewed as a margin of safety against unforeseeable developments, either internal or external, during the life of the treaty; these might be more serious for us, inasmuch as we have already reduced our effectives to the danger point, than it would be for other countries which balance their effectives in relation to those of their neighbors. Furthermore, the analogy between our claiming legal effectives and a treaty navy immediately suggests itself. On the whole this appears a safer approach than the procedure suggested in [Page 127] the next to the last paragraph of your telegram of submitting a lower figure while reserving the right subsequently to revise it upward.