500.A15A5/496: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham)
271. Your 475, September 27, 1 p.m. At press conference this morning I made the following remarks for attribution to me:
Ambassador Bingham has reported to the Department that the British Government today stated in reply to press enquiry that there was no foundation for stories in the Daily Express and Daily Mail that the British Government would shortly inform the United States it intends to invoke the escalator clause.
After adding, for background, that any signatory to the London Naval Treaty is, of course, bound by the Treaty to notify other signatories in the event of its intention to invoke the escalator clause and that we have not received any such notice or any indication that such notice will be given, I proceeded along the following lines:
At the end of the naval conversations held in London last December a joint communiqué was issued announcing the British Government would continue to explore the ground for a naval conference with the French and Italian Governments and keep Japan and ourselves informed of the progress of the conversations. A few months ago the British Government announced they were proceeding with the conversations with France and Italy and hoped it would be possible to call a naval conference before the end of this year in accordance with the naval treaty. The British Government informed Mr. Ray Atherton, Counselor of the Embassy, and Captain Walter Anderson, naval attaché of the Embassy in London, of the progress of the exchange of views with the French and Italian Governments relating to holding a further naval conference. That is about the situation so far. There haven’t been enough definite and final phases of these conversations so far to make them the bases of news items.