My telegram 321. [1]

You will have been consulted by the British Government on certain
naval proposals made to them by the United States Government to
move a large part of the United States Pacific fleet to the
Atlantic. Possible consequences of such action if it were to come
about will be clear to you. The Pacific would be left with what
would be deemed by both American and Australian public as wholly
inadequate naval forces with which to resist potential Japanese
aggression.

(2) Subject no doubt to reactions of Australia and New Zealand,
scheme may well be accepted or rejected in United States and in
United Kingdom not on strategic grounds but on its anticipated
political effect on Japan. Argument of those who favour large
scale movement of United States naval forces to the Atlantic is
that Japan will be so impressed with America's determination that
Britain shall win and that these moves will be taken to mean that
the United States is about to enter the war, that Japan will
hesitate to take any action that will place her on the losing
side. It is on this gamble on Japanese reactions that advocates of
the proposal rely.

(3) 1 would draw your attention to a less drastic proposal
(paragraph 2 of my telegram 321).

(4) I make no comment on the strategical aspect of all this but
from a political point of view I have no hesitation in saying that
the proposal for a transfer of a large proportion of United States
Pacific fleet would leave British countries and interests in
considerable peril. Smaller scheme is to my mind vastly
preferable.

(5) Chief sponsors of more drastic proposal are Stimson, Secretary
of War, and General Marshall, Chief of Staff of United States
Army, who appears to take the attitude that risks have to be taken
in the Pacific in order to make certain of things in North
Atlantic and that when the war is won situation in the Pacific can
be retrieved. As you will know, they seem already to have written
off the Philippines in advance as indefensible.

CASEY