500.A15A5 Construction/127: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson)14
Washington, March 8, 1938—8
p.m.
103. Your 189, March 7, 7 p.m. Replying to the questions raised in your telegram:
- 1.
- We wish to invoke the escalator clause for subcategory (a) of capital ships not subcategory (b).
- 2.
- By invoking the escalator clause with regard to capital ships we wish to be free to take whatever action may appear to us to be necessary regarding the size of our capital ships and the caliber of guns we may wish to mount on them.
- 3.
- We do not desire to fix an upper limit of size of capital ships and the caliber of guns which they may carry.
- 4.
- Escalation under Article 25 is open to serious objection. There is no completely convincing evidence that a power not a party to the present treaty has authorized, constructed or acquired a vessel not in conformity with the limitations and restrictions as to standard displacement and armament prescribed by the Naval Treaty. We do believe, however, that the requirements of our national security are definitely affected by the refusal of the Japanese Government to furnish information with regard to its naval construction. We construe [Page 900] the words “depart” and “departures” in this article to apply to qualitative limits, as well as the number of ships, in our current program of construction.
- 5.
- We note that officials of the British Admiralty have suggested that the meeting on Wednesday take the form of an informal discussion exclusively between the British and ourselves. We believe that it would be advisable, in view of the fact that the discussions were begun on a more general basis, including the French as well as the British and ourselves, to continue on the same general basis, thereby avoiding the appearance that we and the British are attempting to reach some special arrangement exclusive of others.
Hull
- Marginal notation: “OK F.D.R.”↩