At the Crossroads Between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference of 1930

Introduction

John H. Maurer and Christopher M. Bell

The London Naval Conference opened on 21 January 1930 in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords in Westminster. The fog that morning was the worst London had seen all winter. Visibility was so poor that traffic flares had to be lit outside the Parliament buildings, and the car bringing King George V to deliver the opening speech was forced to travel at a walking pace so that it could be guided by policemen carrying lanterns. According to one press account, the fog caused the Royal Gallery to be filled with a strange honey-coloured light. ¹ But there is no indication that the assembled delegates regarded any of this as a bad omen. The king, himself a former naval officer, expressed the hope shared by many that the conference would lead to immediate alleviation of the heavy burden of armaments now weighing upon the peoples of the world and help pave the way for further disarmament efforts. His words found a receptive audience. Leaders espousing a liberal world order had come together in London to fashion in solemn treaty obligations their goal of curtailing the international competition in naval armaments and promoting mutual security among the great powers.

The statesmen who assembled in London believed they were avoiding the mistakes of the recent past, the rivalries in armaments that had contributed to the seeming inevitability of war between the great powers. They consciously set out to build on the naval arms agreement concluded in Washington in 1922 by the world’s five greatest naval powers—the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy. The Washington Treaty had prevented a new naval arms race from erupting after the First World War, but it had not eliminated naval rivalry among the great powers. Competition had soon spilled over into areas not covered by the earlier agreement; and some powers had begun to bristle at the limitations they had willingly accepted. The delegates who gathered in London in early 1930 believed they could create a more comprehensive and durable framework for naval arms limitation. Their efforts were crowned three months later by an arms control agreement, signed by the United States, Britain, and Japan, that was lauded at the time as a major step toward constructing an international architecture for peace, an approach using arms control to reduce spending on weaponry, increase international transparency, and thereby build confidence among world leaders.

The London agreement was notable for curtailing competitive building in cruisers, the largest class of warship not regulated by the Washington Treaty. As a rough guideline, the United States, Britain, and Japan accepted that their relative strengths in this category should conform to the 5:5:3 ratio established for capital ships in Washington. To facilitate an agreement on this contentious issue, all sides agreed to concessions. The United States was allowed a slight advantage over Britain in heavy cruisers (those with displacements of ten thousand tons and eight-inch guns), while Britain was conceded a preponderance in light cruisers, giving it a larger overall tonnage in this class. The United States agreed to delay construction of some of its new heavy cruisers so as to allow Japan temporarily to improve its ratio in this class to 5:5:3.5. The agreement also set tonnage limits for destroyers and submarines, laid out which aging capital ships would be scrapped over the life of the treaty, and extended the building holiday on battleships for another five years.

The success achieved at London, however, proved short-lived. Two of the principal powers represented at the conference, France and Italy, were unable to overcome their mutual differences and remained outside the new arms control agreement. Before long, Japan’s warlords embarked on a path of aggression in China that mocked the aspirations of liberal statesmen to settle disputes among the great powers without recourse to armed conflict. Within Japan, naval leaders, angered by the constraints placed on their navy by arms control obligations, sought to overturn the unequal treaty that they believed Great Britain and the United States had imposed upon them. Japan’s admirals were determined never again to sign a treaty that did not permit them to build up a more powerful navy. Meanwhile, the Nazi seizure of power in Germany brought into play in the international arena another predatory state, intent upon building up its armed strength to undertake wars of aggression. The efforts at London did not halt these aggressive leaders and their countries from following paths toward war.

Considerable controversy thus swirls around the London Treaty of 1930 and the attempts to fashion an interwar arms control regime to manage international rivalries in naval armaments. The London Treaty was undoubtedly the high point of interwar naval arms control, but its legacy is inevitably tainted by the subsequent collapse of the liberal international order it was meant to serve. To detractors of arms control, London served to disarm the status quo powers, the liberal democracies of Britain and the United States, making the international scene more dangerous. Arms control encouraged public opinion in Britain and the United States to scale back defense preparations because spending on naval strength was to waste resources on acquiring weapons for unthinkable wars during a period of economic hard times. Instead of curtailing naval armaments, critics of the London Treaty maintain, Britain and the United States needed to enlarge their navies.

The London agreement was a pivotal moment in interwar arms control and, by extension, in the history of the interwar period. The last book-length study of the conference was published in 1962, making a reexamination long overdue. This volume fills an important gap in our understanding of what happened at London and why its achievement proved so fleeting. By reexamining the London Conference, it is possible to see how history turns, how one era ends and a new one begins. London marked the end of the First World War’s aftermath, of the attempts by world leaders to construct a new international order based on a liberal worldview of cooperation and mutual security, to reduce the danger of war by controlling arms. What was soon to follow would make a mockery of London—the start of a new chapter on the road to another world war.

This volume provides the first comparative examination of the major powers involved in interwar naval arms control negotiations at London in 1930. One of our goals has been to avoid the standard narrative that focuses almost exclusively on Britain and the United States. Sadao Asada offers a compelling account of how Japan’s naval leaders were determined to thwart arms control. This account makes clear that rising nationalist sentiment in Japan gave that country’s naval leaders an opening to campaign against existing limitations on their ability to arm. In another important contribution, Paul Halpern has mined French and Italian archives to give fresh perspective on the views of political and naval leaders in both countries about the international strategic environment. The naval rivalry between France and Italy reflected deeper, conflicting international ambitions of both countries’ leaders. That they could not reach agreement on naval arms underscored the sense in which the London negotiations were proving to mark the end of arms control rather than serving as a springboard for further efforts to limit armaments rivalries.

This study also incorporates new information that was not available to other historians who have examined interwar international relations and arms control. Some of the most important new documents to reach the archives in recent years are those revealing the full extent of the successes enjoyed by Britain’s code breakers before and during the conference. Britain’s leaders approached the negotiations with an important advantage in the realm of intelligence, but the impact of signals intelligence on Britain’s actions and the conference’s outcome has not been properly told before this study. This subject is treated at length by John Ferris, whose contribution to this volume examines the role and importance of intelligence in statecraft and strategy.

This volume reexamines a critical moment in the history of the U.S. Navy during the twentieth century. John Kuehn and Norman Friedman give close attention to American ambitions and decision making in approaching the London Conference. The Hoover administration was determined to bring about a reduction in naval spending and find a solution to the vexing question of how to measure and then control the relative cruiser strengths of Britain, Japan, and the United States. The compromises worked out at London to manage the rivalry in cruiser construction and strength did not prove easy to achieve, and the negotiations might readily have failed to reach agreement.

Christopher Bell shows that the London Conference represented an important turning point for Britain as well. The willingness of Ramsay MacDonald, Britain’s first Labour prime minister, to overrule his naval advisers and make major concessions to the United States brought to a close a decade marked by deteriorating Anglo-American relations and set the two powers, however tentatively, on the path that would culminate in their wartime alliance. But at the same time, the sacrifices accepted at London in 1930 struck a major blow to Britain’s ability to defend its global interests and accelerated its naval decline.

With regard to understanding the unraveling of the London agreement between the world wars, this volume can also provide insight into the pitfalls and perils of attempting to arrest international rivalries through arms control negotiations. Today, prominent public commentators have invoked the interwar arms control agreements as models and inspiration for establishing a framework for cooperation with the rising power of China. In his recent book On China, Henry Kissinger calls on the leaders of China and the United States to develop a multinational framework—a Pacific Community—to foster collaboration among the great powers of Asia and reduce the chances of conflict.²

China’s rising power, however, is fraught with problems that work against a smooth transition of power in Asia. The dramatic growth of China’s economy is producing strategic consequences that will prove difficult to manage for even the cleverest of world leaders.³ For example, as the Chinese economy surges ahead over the coming decade, China’s leaders confront increasing strategic vulnerability, with other countries holding the means to disrupt critical sea lines of communication. China’s economic growth is and will remain heavily dependent on access to overseas resources. China’s industrialization and growing demand for automobiles requires oil imports from the Middle East and Africa. The growing appetite for food imports is another strategic vulnerability facing China. As a consequence, its rulers will likely feel compelled to undertake arms programs and pursue a foreign policy that they believe minimizes these risks. The aspiration of Chinese naval leaders to possess four large aircraft carriers by 2020 is motivated in part by this drive to provide for China’s security on the high seas.⁴ Further, China’s growing economy enables its armed forces to compete more effectively in the maritime and aerospace domains against rivals, including the United States. China’s development of more powerful submarine and surface naval forces, antiship ballistic and cruise missiles, and space and cyberwarfare capabilities, as well as efforts to improve combat readiness, are eroding the long-standing lead of the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific. China’s arms buildup means that the United States must make a greater effort just to stay in place in the competition. To maintain the current balance of power in the western Pacific will require that the United States put even more effort into countering China. Otherwise, America’s ability to fight effectively on the maritime commons will erode. Whether American decision makers remain willing to maintain the lead in the arms competition occurring in Asia is one of the most consequential questions now facing the country. Paul Kennedy has noted that the United States is frantically trying to figure out what this rise of Asian sea-power means for its own overstretched world position.⁵ New naval rivalries in the Pacific will thus pose problems that make imperative an understanding of the interwar competitions in sea power.

Troubling too is the attempt by China’s rulers to garner legitimacy and popular support by manipulating Chinese nationalism. The Chinese regime, Nicholas Kristof has observed, by constantly excoriating the Japanese nationalists of the 1930s, [is] emulating them.⁶ Not surprisingly, China’s military leaders show themselves as ardent nationalists, eager to develop and deploy the latest generations of weaponry in an attempt to promote their country’s foreign policy ambitions, provide for its security, and avenge past wrongs. Professor Huang Jing has presented the provocative view: The young officers [in China] are taking control of strategy and it is like [the] young officers in Japan in the 1930s. They are thinking what they can do, not what they should do. This is very dangerous. They are on a collision course with a U.S.-dominated system.⁷ Kissinger is also concerned by the strident calls of triumphalist nationalists within China who call for their country to become stronger militarily and act more assertively in the international arena as its economy grows.⁸ The combination of weak political leadership and aggressive military chiefs, as Japan’s experience of the 1930s attests, can prove a formula for strategic disaster. American leaders must try to shape the debate among China’s rulers, policy advisers, and defense planners that self-restraint in armaments might best serve their country’s and the regime’s interests. Whether that effort can prove more successful than the attempt by liberal statesmen at London remains the challenge for statecraft in the twenty-first century.

NOTES

1.Register News-Pictorial, 23 January 1930, 4.

2.Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin, 2011), 527–30.

3.On the international strategic consequences of economic crises, see James Kurth, A Tale of Four Crises: The Politics of Great Depressions and Recessions, Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 55, no. 3 (Summer 2011), 500–523.

4.Jeremy Page, China Flexes Naval Muscle, Wall Street Journal, 11 August 2011, 1.

5.Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall, World Today 66, nos. 8–9 (August–September 2010), 6.

6.Nicholas D. Kristof, The China Threat? New York Times, 20 December 2003.

7.Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, China’s Young Officers and the 1930s Syndrome, Telegraph, September 7, 2010, accessed online at blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100007519/china%E2%80%99s-young-officers-and-the-1930s-syndrome/.

8.Kissinger, On China, 503–7.

CHAPTER 1

A Turning Point in Anglo-American Relations?

The General Board of the Navy and the London Naval Treaty

John T. Kuehn

I have always been a great advocate of a real entente between us [the United States and the United Kingdom] but do not believe in written alliances. As I think I have told you in the past, Great Britain makes me pretty hot under the collar sometimes, but I admire the nationalism that is always manifest in all that they do. If ever we could get them really at heart to recognise that the US must be treated as a co-equal and must march in international affairs shoulder to shoulder with her, it would go a long way to straightening out questions between us.

—Rear Admiral Hilary Jones to Rear Admiral W. V. Pratt, February 1926

The U.S. Navy has played a significant role in the foreign policy of the United States for most of its existence. ¹ Its role in preparing for and influencing the London Naval Conference from 1927 to 1930 was of great importance and perhaps the acme of direct diplomatic agency by the U.S. Navy during the period between World Wars I and II. ² Until recently, some naval historians regarded that role in a negative light. In this view, stodgy battleship admirals saw Great Britain rather than Japan as the enemy and had stymied British and U.S. cooperation. This chapter does not argue that the General Board approved of the results of the Washington Conference in 1922 or London in 1930—far from it: its members were very vocal in their opposition to both treaties, especially the one in 1930. ³ However, that vocal opposition, after Washington, to Geneva in 1927, and after London, had serendipitous results. By being contrarian and offering the minority opinion, as it were, the General Board helped to reconcile the naval policies of the United States and Great Britain (unintentionally at first). ⁴ Additionally, by being so intimately involved in the arms limitation process, the board created a cadre of diplomat-admirals, well versed in naval arms limitation on both sides of the treaty issue, who provided outstanding expertise at London in 1930—expertise that arguably put the U.S. Navy in a better position for the trials ahead. ⁵

In order to provide context for the actions of the General Board at the London Naval Conference of 1930, this chapter will first discuss how the Navy came to have a substantially more important role in American foreign policy. It will then briefly discuss the genesis of the General Board and the role it came to play in naval arms limitation. Additionally, the organizational process of how the board worked will add value as well as a taxonomy for a better understanding of its actions prior to and during the arms conferences. Finally, the narrative of its involvement with the London Conference must begin with the failed Geneva Naval Conference, to provide essential context to the run-up to London in 1930 and its eventual outcome.

The Navy, the General Board, and Foreign Policy

From the 1880s, due to the efforts of men like Stephen B. Luce, A. T. Mahan, and, especially, Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy played an increasingly pivotal, even dominant, role in American foreign policy. Two policies propelled the Navy as an institution into the very heart of the foreign-policy decision processes of the United States—the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door. The building and acquisition of a modern steel fleet contributed to the formulation of the famous Roosevelt Corollary to the venerable Monroe Doctrine. Theodore Roosevelt promised not only to oppose Old World attempts at new territorial acquisitions in the Americas but to assist nations that needed U.S. help. This assistance was in large part enabled by Roosevelt’s use of his navy.⁶

However, the U.S. Navy’s role in foreign policy, already quite important due to the Monroe Doctrine and maritime trade, expanded profoundly with the acquisition of the Philippine Islands and Guam because of the Spanish-American War. Here territorial defense requirements and the Open Door intersected and interacted in such a way as to add to the list of the Navy’s maritime and diplomatic responsibilities overseas.

What was the Open Door? It is best, perhaps, simply to quote its author, Secretary of State John Hay, to gain a sense of its tenets: "Earnestly desirous to remove any cause of irritation and to insure at the same time to the commerce of all nations in China the undoubted benefits which should accrue from a formal recognition by the various powers claiming ‘spheres of interest’ that they shall enjoy perfect equality of treatment for their commerce and navigation within such ‘spheres.’"⁷

In other words, the United States declared a policy of open commerce and navigation inside China as that ancient civilization opened up during the last years of the Qing Dynasty. Additionally, the Open Door involved free navigation, not just for trade but also to permit access for Christian missionaries from the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt provides a clear explication of how the acquisition of the Philippines interacted with Hay’s enunciation of the policy: The inevitable march of events gave us the control of the Philippine Islands at a time so opportune that may without irreverence be called providential.⁸ Sea-power theorist A. T. Mahan wrote, We can scarcely fail to see that upon the sea primarily must be found our power to secure our own borders and to sustain our external policy, of which at the present moment there are two principal elements; namely, the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door.⁹ As such, the Open Door and the defense of the Philippines both required support by the fleet of the United States for the foreseeable future.

The General Board of the Navy was arguably the nation’s first modern general staff. Its creation was very much a reflection of the reformist spirit of the times, a spirit that would later give birth to the Army War College, the Army General Staff, and the office of Chief of Naval Operations.¹⁰ The General Board was born out of an honest study of the lessons of the Spanish-American War. That conflict had been poorly managed by both the Army and, to a lesser degree, the Navy; these lessons had been learned the hard way.¹¹ One of the few bright spots in its conduct involved the establishment of the Naval War Board of 1898 by Secretary of the Navy John D. Long. This board included Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, and several senior Navy captains. Long freely acknowledged that since he lacked professional experience and the Navy being without a General Staff, it was necessary that he should have the assistance of such a Board. Based on this recent experience and at the urging of the chief of the Bureau of Navigation, Admiral H. C. Taylor, Secretary Long issued General Order 544 on 13 March 1900 establishing the General Board of the Navy. Its purpose was to insure efficient preparation of the fleet in case of war and for the naval defense of the coast.¹²

The board’s early years were dominated by its one and only president, the hero of the battle of Manila Bay—Admiral George Dewey. Dewey served in this capacity until his death in January 1917. Its charter was as broad or as narrow as the secretary of the Navy chose to make it, since only he determined the agenda. The position of the board was always precarious, since its creation had been the result not of congressional legislation but of executive fiat. Nonetheless, the longer it existed the more recognized it became as an institutional authority on important strategic issues in the Navy, as well as in the language of legislation. Until 1909 the board was overwhelmingly concerned with fulfilling its role as a strategic and operational planning entity, as envisaged by Admiral Henry Taylor and others.¹³

By 1908–1909, during the design battles over the first U.S. dreadnoughts, the General Board finally became preeminent in fleet design. Up to that point the bickering naval bureaus had dominated the process of warship design. These bureaus warrant explanation. Semiautonomous entities, they largely ran those parts of the Navy that built ships, provided resources, and generated administrative policy prior to World War I. They worked for the secretary of the Navy, and coordination between them was informal. Disputes between the bureaus were resolved at the secretarial level. The major bureaus consisted of Navigation (which included personnel management), Ordnance (sometimes called the gun club), Construction and Repair (C&R), Engineering, Yards and Docks, and (after World War I) Aeronautics.¹⁴ Throughout the Navy they were known by their abbreviations: BuNav, BuEng, BuOrd, BuC&R, BuY&D, and BuAer. Each was usually headed by an unrestricted-line admiral, often destined for higher command, except BuC&R, which fell under the leadership of the senior Construction Corps officer. The General Board came to serve as a coordinating staff, and even referee, between the office of the secretary, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the bureaus.

A conference convened at the Naval War College in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt set out to resolve the bickering between the bureaus. The attendees reached a consensus that line officers should be more intimately involved in the process of warship design and decided that the General Board would fulfill this function. This decision had the force of a presidential order.¹⁵ Navy Regulations later formalized this precedent, reading, by the time of the first London Naval Conference, When the designs are to be prepared for a new ship, the General Board shall submit to the Secretary of the Navy a recommendation as to the military characteristics to be embodied therein. By this process the General Board became the final arbiter in the design of warships and, by extension, the fleet.¹⁶

It took time for this to happen, but once this precedent established an expansion of the General Board’s authority, its influence in fleet design gradually increased. Some naval historians regard the establishment of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OpNav) by congressional legislation in 1915 and 1916 as the beginning of the end of the influence of the board. Although OpNav replaced the General Board as the principal war-planning entity in the Navy, the board retained its authority over fleet design and building policy. In fact, its role was to connect the two, since it was still required to remain cognizant of the war plans: The General Board shall be furnished, for information, with the approved war plans, including cooperation with the Army and employment of the elements of naval defense.¹⁷

For the purposes of this chapter, however, it was the Great War (World War I) that catapulted naval officers, and in particular the members of General Board, into the uppermost levels of foreign policy as diplomats in blue.¹⁸ The impact of the World War I was indirect, but no less profound, because it was in the aftermath of that conflict that the mechanism of collective-security agreements and institutions—for example, the League of Nations—gave impetus to the idea of naval arms limitation. Statesmen identified the naval arms race between Great Britain and Germany prior to the outbreak of World War I as a contributing factor that had led to the catastrophes and stalemates in the trenches. The new American president, Warren G. Harding, opened the Washington Naval Conference in 1921 by referring explicitly to this factor: Out of the cataclysm of the World War came new fellowships, new convictions, new aspirations. . . . A world staggering with debt needs its burden lifted. Humanity which has been shocked by wanton destruction would minimize the agencies of that destruction. Contemplating the measureless cost of war and the continuing burden of armament, all thoughtful peoples wish for real limitation of armament and would like war outlawed.¹⁹

After the president’s short speech, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes delivered his now-famous proposal that sank more warships than any navy had in history, to paraphrase the words of a contemporary observer. It was by this means that that the U.S. Navy, which lost in that conference the most warship tonnage of any power (over 800,000 tons), ironically found its role in foreign policy enhanced by naval arms limitation.²⁰ Once the dust had settled, the diplomats turned over the execution of the Washington Naval Treaty’s terms to their naval establishments. In the United States, that task fell exclusively to the General Board of the Navy.²¹

Thus, by two mechanisms—fleet design and naval disarmament stemming from naval arms limitation—the General Board became the primary agent to execute and uphold the Washington Treaty system. Its members influenced Navy policy and programs in a way that was meant to wring every advantage possible allowed under the treaty. These habits informed its approach to naval conferences at Geneva in 1927 and London in 1930. Board members crafted advice, delivered in the 438/438-1 series of General Board Reports (or serials), that was meant to shape future treaty negotiations to the advantage of the United States. They came to perceive themselves as a group of subject-matter experts on the clauses of the naval treaties.

By the time of the Geneva Conference the organization of the General Board was relatively fixed. It was composed of an executive committee of twelve officers, up to seven of them admirals, either coming from sea duty or going to sea duty. It also included four significant ex officio members—the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the president of the Naval War College (NWC), and the Director of Naval Intelligence. Also assigned was a secretary (usually a senior Navy commander or a captain), and other officers could be temporarily attached as needed by the Navy secretary. The chairman of the General Board was often one of the most senior admirals on active duty. In 1930, the entire board met regularly on the last Tuesday of every month and as directed by the secretary, whereas the executive committee met at ten o’clock every morning, Monday through Friday.²²

The mechanics of the General Board’s processes highlight how its structure and function influenced its role in naval diplomacy. First, the General Board was authoritative, in the sense that other Navy entities, and often the secretary of the Navy, considered its advice the last word on a particular issue.²³ For example, the correspondence of the interwar period is full of references to the opinion of the Board or the judgment of the Board. These opinions and judgments were reference points that the secretary of the Navy, CNO, NWC, and the bureaus would use in making decisions, initiating programs, and spending money.²⁴ At the time of the London Treaty the General Board too perceived itself as an important entity in the formulation of plans, policy, and strategy: "Although the General Board is not established by [congressional] Statute, it has long been recognized in legislation by Congress. In the organization of the Navy Department it has a very definite standing as a personal advisory board to the Secretary of the Navy. Its membership being composed of officers of long experience and special qualification, its advice is available to the Secretary on broad questions of naval policy and specific questions referred to him from time to time."²⁵

The General Board’s process was an open one—in today’s terminology it would be called a flat hierarchy. There were open lines of communication between the board and other organizations, both internal and external to the Navy. These lines of communication were not limited to governmental entities (see figure 1.1). The board examined a broad array of ideas and testimony, either written or in formal hearings. It could invite experts from anywhere to testify on any topic of interest. These hearings favored a collaborative, and sometimes confrontational, exchange of ideas.²⁶ The board posed potential courses of action about topics ranging from naval policy (such as arms limitation) to the thickness of armor on a battleship’s bridge.

Figure 1.1Navy Organizational Relationships during the Interwar Period

The historical record suggests that the General Board was good at working multiple issues at the same time. It tended to withhold judgment and instead to subject new or competing ideas to analysis, collaborating with other Navy organizations in the process. It often simply deferred making recommendations until a concept or ship design had been tested by war gaming at the Naval War College and then experimented with by the fleet in the annual fleet exercises. Results of fleet exercises, which were usually built around battle problems and the college’s war-gaming results, were used by the General Board in its deliberations.²⁷

The General Board advised the secretary of the Navy at meetings and by written products. The meetings could be either closed, informal discussions—often restricted to the membership of the board—or formal hearings before the board, as discussed above. In 1929 the board explained the purpose and initiation of its hearings as follows:

When the General Board has a subject before it for consideration on which the advice or recommendation of materiel bureaus, other officers of the Department, or civilian experts, is desired, a hearing is held at which these various representatives are requested to be present and present such information as they may have for consideration by the Board. These hearings are recorded, bound kept in the General Board offices, and form an excellent set of reference papers for further use. From such hearings and personal knowledge of the members, the General Board formulates its recommendations to the Secretary.²⁸

Closed meetings could include the entire membership of the board but more often, prior to 1932, were limited to the executive committee. The purpose of both the closed meetings and the hearings was to provide advice in the form of a written study.²⁹ For most issues—policy, tactics, arms limitation, and ship design—the board consulted a broad variety of expertise. The board could use the transcribed hearings either to draft a new study or make changes to an existing one. Once the draft had been revised, it was submitted as a numbered serial to the secretary of the Navy. The General Board assigned the serial numbers in chronological fashion, based on when a topic was received by the board. For example, serial 1427 on The Reduction and Limitation of Armaments was referred to the board on 31 May 1929. On 8 June the board spent the entire morning discussing this serial after being briefed by Admiral Hilary Jones, member at large, concerning his attendance at the sixth session of the Preparatory Commission (for naval armaments) at the League of Nations in Geneva. On the same day the finalized serial was forwarded to the secretary of the Navy, who directed further action in preparation for the upcoming London Naval Arms Conference in 1930. These numbered serials were retained for reference. Sometimes serials were referred to other Navy organizations (typically the bureaus) for work—that is, in the Navy terminology of the time, for action.³⁰

During