500.A15A5/111: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham)4
269. [For Davis.] Your 352, June 25, noon, and 354, June 26, 6 p.m. We approve your recommendation in paragraph 8 to take a strong stand with the British delegates from the very outset, and feel [Page 277] that the arguments you set forth in the first three paragraphs of your telegram are well taken.
For your guidance. Whether or not the British exposition is a statement of position or a proposal, it is wholly unacceptable to the United States even as a basis of discussion. It is obvious that we must still seek either a treaty providing for reductions or at most the existing maximum tonnages with no change in ratios, but we should use every effort for the first. No counter American proposal should be made and no reconciling technical discussions should be entered into.
The British position or proposal regarding a navy for the separate Dominions is wholly unacceptable.
It is difficult to understand the subtle distinction made by Mac-Donald and Craigie between a “statement of position” and a “proposal” but this may well offer them a golden bridge for retreat and we for our part will facilitate it by indicating to the press, if necessary, that whatever increases the British technical experts may have indicated as their preference the British delegates have not committed themselves in any way, and that the conversations are still in an exploratory stage.
We are just as anxious as MacDonald to reach a common viewpoint but could not justify a radical departure from the principle embodied in the London Treaty.
As the immediate essential in procedure is to avoid any discrepancy in press reaction between London and Washington, please telegraph us at once, and in advance if possible, any explanation or guidance you plan to give to the American press as to our position.
- Marginal notation in original: “Approved by the President. Copy initialled by Adm[iral] Standley.”↩