Cablegram 29 LONDON, 1 July 1940, 8.39 p.m.
Foreign Office Telegram No. 1325 to Lord Lothian [1] is in my view
of transcending importance and presents an opportunity to put a
case to the President [2] and Sumner Welles [3] based on United
States self-interest to induce them to do what it is vital in our
interest should be done.
Apart from a declaration of war by the United States making the
U.K. and the U.S. fleets a common unit there is no immediate help
of outstanding value that the U.S. can render.
The vital necessity is that the U.S. should immediately organise
her unparalleled economic potentialities, but if this is to be
effective sufficiently to accelerate the pace of the existing
machine profound and fundamental reorganisation on a national
basis will have to be effected (see Telegram to Lothian No. 1325,
1 b).
This would be essential in the interests of the U.S. if the U.K.
were to go the way of France, but will be equally essential if the
U.K. can resist invasion and carry on with British fleet based on
the U.K., as, in my view, through loss of time and destruction of
factories due to enemy air action, British production, however
well organized, cannot reach the volume necessary to obtain air
supremacy and equip the divisions required to meet the position in
Africa and the Middle East as it develops, [and carry] [4] out
sporadic but perpetual harassing of the enemy along the 2000 miles
of European coast line it now occupies, which will be essential.
It will therefore be necessary to look to the U.S. and Canada
primarily and to Australia to a minor extent to meet this need.
Our approach to the U.S. in my view should be to make clear beyond
any possibility of doubt that there is no contribution in man-
power for land forces which the U.S. would be asked to or in fact
could usefully make-that it is enough if through her industrial
capacity her help can be rendered-that out of our experience we
can tell her that nothing short of an all-in national effort will
be sufficient to make that industrial capacity produce the results
required of it-urge that any action in any case taken at once is
to be presumed in U.S.’s own interests quite apart from its value
to us in carrying on the struggle.
Repeated to Canberra, No. 500.
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1 U.K. Ambassador to the United States. The cablegram, dispatched
On 30 June, instructed Lothian to convey to the U.S. Govt that the
U.K. Govt, having made a thorough review of the economic situation
created by the fall of France, desired ‘to impress upon the United
States administration their conviction that, in order to achieve
victory at the earliest possible moment, [they] must look to the
United States to furnish equipment, supplies of aircraft and other
munitions and essential raw materials on an altogether larger
scale than hitherto’. See file AA: A3300, 47.
2 Franklin D. Roosevelt.
3 U.S. Under-Secretary of State.
4 Corrected from Braces copy on file AA: M100, July 1940.
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[AA: A3300, 47]
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