500.A15A5/83: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis)
435. The President and I have talked over your 893, June 12, 1 p.m. We fully appreciate the considerations you advance against having the forthcoming naval conversations head up through the Embassy at London. Nevertheless it is our considered judgment that these preliminary naval conversations should not be viewed as a part of the general disarmament negotiations. We feel that their chief chance of success lies in disassociating them from the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. As a corollary to this, we oppose enlarging the conference by the inclusion of other Naval Powers with their attendant problems and would not object if the preliminary conversation were limited to the United States, Great Britain and Japan.
Not only have we laid stress on the informal character of these conversations, but we consider it important not to give the impression that they are in any sense a preliminary conference. I base this in part on my talks with the representatives of the Naval Powers here and in part on the indications we are receiving from Japan of a distinct reluctance to come to grips on technical problems at this point. We foresee little probability of these conversations, either in substance or in time, going beyond the stage of an exploratory sounding out and hence do not feel that this Government would be warranted if only from a psychological point of view, in setting up under present circumstances a separate delegation at London apart from normal diplomatic channels.
[Page 249]If we did not know both Bingham and yourself so well, we should hesitate to ask you to work together with equal responsibility under such an arrangement, but the considerations we have outlined make it logical to head the talks up through the Embassy in such a way that we can profit both by the position of Bingham as Ambassador to Great Britain and of yourself as our primary authority on disarmament.
For your information, Admiral Leigh is bringing the President’s instructions59 on technical naval matters.
- General Board memorandum of June 4, 1934; not found in Department files.↩