Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1932, General, Volume I

500.A15A4/1103: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson)

Washington, June 7, 1932—noon.

122. To the Delegation. Your 220, May 28, 2 p.m.

1. I am wholly sympathetic with your desire to be so prepared that it will be unnecessary for you to discourage the cause of disarmament by holding back in case a situation for a real measure of success should arise. This does not, however, require that you should be prepared in such detail as if our delegation was under the burden of the initiative itself to carry through a complete program. The real strength of America’s position in the movement for peace today does not depend upon her taking the initiative in this Conference. On the contrary you are facing what is primarily an European peace conference. America is anxious to aid that and in no way thwart it, but at this very moment our navy is maintaining the stability of peace in the Far East, not only for ourselves but for Britain, France and the other large powers interested in that locality. The world today is divided into two hemispheres in respect to the problems of peace and disarmament. One hemisphere contains the pressing disarmament problems of the European nations who are sitting at Geneva, the other the even more burning problem of preventing the spread of war in Asia. America sits between those two hemispheres, and her position at Geneva is in some respects limited by her responsibility on the Pacific. Our fleet today is so far below the London Treaty limits that the greatest care must be taken lest even apparently minor changes disqualify it from continuing to perform the peace duty which it is now performing. Furthermore the armament burdens which trouble Europe are primarily land armaments. The only naval power which bears upon these European land armaments is the British naval power in the Mediterranean which conflicts with the French ferriage problem to North Africa. No matter how much we might reduce our navy, Britain would never relinquish her superiority in the Mediterranean which is based on Malta and Gibraltar and protects her route to India. Thus our naval power really has no influence in preventing European land disarmament.

2. In the face of this situation Baldwin’s proposition²⁹ that we should abolish battleships completely is an impossible one. The British Government must know that we cannot agree to it, and I feel sure that neither they nor France nor Italy will press it to our embarrassment. In the United States today such a proposition would be frankly impossible politically and rightly so.

3. Nor do I think there is reason to anticipate alarming dissatisfaction from peace groups at Chicago. We are in touch with the groups who are preparing the plank to be presented at the conventions,³⁰ and their attitude and their plank is moderate in tone. We have asked them directly whether there was dissatisfaction with our policy at Geneva, and they have told us that it was confined to a very small and unimportant group.

4. The drawback to setting out a program of concessions prematurely is that no matter how carefully it may be guarded by the condition that it is to be treated as a whole and not in part, nevertheless this precaution will not avail to prevent other powers from picking it to pieces and using our concessions while rejecting our conditions. Such concessions may return after many years to plague us. Therefore my own view of the safest tactics for America in this conference has always been to stand firmly on the unchallengeable position that in 1922 and 1930 the naval powers made the only effective sacrifice in disarmament that has ever been made, limiting their peculiar weapon the navies, and that until a similar earnest of progress shall be made by the land powers, it is not up to us to offer further concessions. There is considerable danger that this Conference is drifting away from this fundamental point, namely, the necessity of finding a solution for the burdens and dangers of the land powers of Europe. Without offering any substantial concession themselves, spokesmen for the land powers have spent much energy in trying to drive us to further concessions which are really irrelevant to the real problem.

5. I therefore think you should be most cautious before you disclose our ultimate possibility of concession and that it should not be done unless there is a genuine proposal of general disarmament, including a disarmament of the land powers proportionately equivalent to what we have given and are giving up on the sea and that the proposal is practically certain of adoption by the major powers on these points. On these points I must be first consulted. Frankly I am skeptical of such a proposition being actually made. I am practically certain that Japan would not join in her present temper. It is not consonant with our present duties in the Pacific for America to lift to the world an unsupported torch on this subject.

6. Under these conditions I think the limit to which I can go in outlining to you the possibility of naval concessions is to tell you how our minds are working here now, in order that you may have the means of comparing in your own minds the feasibility of proposals which other nations may discuss with you, but without giving you the authority to put our proposals out until I am assured that the possibility of a real disarmament has crystallized far more than is in sight at the present. Therefore what we now give you must be held for the present strictly confidential within the members of the delegation.

7. Battleships: Under no condition can they be abolished. Conceivably the tonnage of the five powers might be reduced by a 33 per cent cut, we thus having 10 ships to Japan’s 6, the limitation of individual vessel size remaining as at present. In this connection remember that an American proposal at London, in 1930, for a similar reduction of 20 per cent in tonnage was rejected by both Great Britain and Japan.

8. Airplanes and carriers: We might abolish all military aviation as a part of land armament in time of peace and prohibit all bombing from the air both on land and sea. We are unwilling to abolish airplanes for reconnaissance and guidance of fire at sea or the carriers necessary for this purpose. We might consent to a cut of 20 per cent in the total tonnage of such carriers.

9. Cruisers: We might consent to a 20 per cent cut in the total London Treaty tonnage; the 8-inch cruiser tonnage, however, to remain as at present, namely, 180,000 for us, 146,800 for Britain, 108,400 for Japan. We might make a similar 20 per cent reduction in total destroyer tonnage. France and Italy of course present a peculiar problem owing to their not being parties to Part Three of the London Naval Treaty, but it is not insuperable. Both nations have, at various stages in the negotiations, suggested quotas of each auxiliary category with which they professed to be satisfied. It should be possible, therefore, to fix by agreement for the purpose of this general program a basis from which to make a proportionate cut. In any event, they must be a party to the agreement and make a sacrifice which is commensurate with that made by the three larger naval powers.

10. All of these suggested reductions in naval strength would be not only conditioned on mutual proportionate cuts in the same categories of treaty strength of the other powers, but they are especially contingent upon a cut of 33 per cent being made in submarine tonnage, and especially upon there being accepted a reduction of the size of individual submarines to 250 tons. This individual reduction is the chief key to the suggestion and represents a concession from what has hitherto been our position of demanding the total abolition of submarines.

11. Land forces: As I have already stated such naval concession must be also contingent upon a real reduction of the forces of the land powers genuinely commensurate with what the naval powers have done since 1921. We feel that it is necessary to maintain in the world the general balance between military power on the sea with that on the land. As a matter of fact, for over a hundred years the sea power of the two English-speaking nations, which are the two leading naval powers today, has been in general exercised for stability and peace in the world. That is its characteristic today. For that reason alone this sea power should not be so diminished as to give military power on land, which is capable of more permanent aggression than sea power, a disproportionate weight. The large land forces of Japan require special attention, because unlike other land powers, she has a most powerful navy, almost equalling the strength of the other two naval powers, who on their part have practically no land strength. We feel that the minimum reduction for the land forces of the land powers should be at least a 33⅓ per cent cut of their respective defense contingents, calculated upon the basis of our formula for land effectives. In other words, they must accept our formula based upon some agreed method of calculating the two classes of effectives and then consent to a cut of at least one-third in the defense contingents.

12. Answering your specific question, whether we will undertake not to increase our present army, the extent of our commitment should be not to increase it beyond the appropriate increment necessary for police or domestic order. Should our proposal as to effectives be adopted in any form, the American army today is probably much below the standard which will be chosen as necessary for such police or domestic order. It is very likely considerably below the size which we ourselves may hereafter find necessary in case of domestic disorder.

13. Our proposal already made as to tanks, heavy mobile artillery and gas should, of course, be a part of any such general plan.³¹

14. The foregoing includes what I consider to be at present an irreducible minimum in the reduction of the naval strength of this country under any conditions which I can conceive as arising. As I have already emphasized, it should not be put forward even to friendly powers until we are assured of a strong probability of success. In several respects strenuous effort should be made to better it even when proposed, as for example, in the case of the abolition of submarines. We here must reserve the right to be consulted as to the hopefulness of any situation in which it is to be disclosed.

15. I am sending this message after conference with the President, the Chief of [Naval] Operations, and the Chief of Staff. While it represents our most careful effort, it is not intended to shut you off from comment thereon, which I shall always welcome.

Stimson

29. See telegram No. 169, May 13, 4 p.m., from the Ambassador in Great Britain, p. 121.
30. The national conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties were held in Chicago in June–July, 1932.
31. See Mr. Gibson’s speech of April 11, p. 76.