500.A15A4/1116: Telegram
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation (Gibson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 11—3:05 p.m.]
242. Cadogan called this afternoon on his return from London and said that the Prime Minister and Sir John Simon who will arrive here Monday night, will on Tuesday communicate to us their views as to how the future work of the Conference should be handled. He said he was not in a position to give us “chapter and verse” but that he was encouraged by the progress his Government had made toward a general conception of the problem.
He said that their thoughts were not even yet entirely definite and were subject to possible modifications after talking with Herriot in Paris and with us here and that this was “all that he could now usefully tell us”. He was familiar with Mr. Mellon’s interview with Baldwin and Simon and felt that Baldwin was startled and in his desire that his previous conversation with Davis to [sic] my cablegrams should not be considered official “perhaps went too far towards disclaiming any project on the part of the British Government.”
We raised the question of a drastic cut in land armaments as a condition for considering any further efforts on our part and he said his Government was in thorough accord with that point of view. No detailed discussion took place and we of course made no endeavor to urge his confidence and volunteered nothing as to the line in which our thoughts were running.