793.84/16012
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)
The British Ambassador took me aside after dinner last evening and said that, having just returned to Washington, he had been informed very briefly by Mr. Butler of the matters which Mr. Butler had brought to my attention yesterday noon. The Ambassador then gave me an outline of his views regarding Great Britain’s position and prospects in Europe—along the lines of what he had said at New Haven in an address a text of which is here attached.76 He said that in his opinion the British Government should not accede to the demands of the Japanese military, as the consequences of doing so would be of no advantage to Great Britain. He felt that both the British and the American Governments should stand firm in regard to the situation in the Far East. He said that his idea of strategy would be for Great Britain to keep her Fleet based upon the British Isles; if the British Isles cease to be usable as a base for that Fleet, move that Fleet to Singapore; so long as the British Fleet is in the Eastern Atlantic there would be no great need for the American Fleet in the Atlantic; if the British Fleet disappears from that area, then, of course, the United States Fleet would be needed in the Atlantic; then, a shift of the American Fleet to the Atlantic and of the British Fleet to Singapore would best serve both American interests and British interests.
The Ambassador asked whether the American Government might not to advantage take, in view of the agitation in Japan, some new and special step toward tranquilizing or stabilizing the situation in the Pacific. I said that Mr. Butler had raised that question with me, and that I felt that it was a question which might best be discussed by the Ambassador directly with the Under Secretary or the Secretary.
The Ambassador said that he would hope to call on the Under Secretary or the Secretary shortly.
- Not printed.↩