462.00R296/5167
Memorandum by the Economic Adviser (Feis) of a Conversation With the Bulgarian Minister (Radeff)
The Bulgarian Minister came in yesterday to observe that he read with interest in the press the reports from Paris that we were discussing with interested Governments the continuation during the debt [Page 195] suspension year of German-American payments on claims account.89 As we foresaw, the Bulgarian Government sees in the attitude we are taking, and in some of the arguments we are using to justify the continuation of German payments on claims account, a parallel and helpful argument for the continuation by Greece of payments under the Molloff-Caphandaris Agreement.
While remaining as non-committal as possible, I gave him an outline of the situation and he asked for copies of the laws and agreements making up the situation. I gave him the names of these and said that if he requested them, I have no doubt that the Department would furnish them.
The Molloff-Caphandaris matter was the subject of a very long debate in the Council of the League yesterday between Venizelos and the Bulgarian representative Malinoff. According to the press, the debate began in great anger but a certain degree of conciliatory attitude was shown before the end.
In reply to my question as to whether he believes the Council likely to refer to the World Court, the Bulgarian Minister indicated that it was likely.
It has been apparent from this and previous conversation that the Bulgarian Government fears that the members of the World Court will be unconsciously influenced in their judgment by environmental or political considerations. As indication of this tendency, the Bulgarian Minister cited the decision just rendered as regards the Austro-German Customs Union;90 he believed that the judges siding against the Union were in the main those who were in the orbit of French influence.
- See vol. ii, pp. 280 ff.↩
- See pp. 565 ff.↩