740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Eastern Locarno)/17: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:50 a.m.]
225. The visit to Moscow of Selijamaa, Foreign Minister of Estonia, has produced great diplomatic activity and remarkable results.
1. Yesterday afternoon Selijamaa and Bilmanis, Latvian Minister to the Soviet Union, signed an “agreement” to enter the Eastern Locarno provided Poland and Germany should also enter it. There was no acceptance of a specific written text. The proposal made by Litvinov contained two clauses: (1st, a general guarantee of mutual assistance by all signatories; (2d), a special guarantee by Russia of the borders of France and Germany, by France of the borders of Russia and Germany, by Germany of the borders of Russia and France.
The following text was published this morning as a declaration of Litvinov:
“The Estonian Government declares that it assumes a favorable attitude to the Eastern pact of mutual assistance in which the U. S. S. R., Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states would participate.
In consideration of the absence of a definite text Estonia reserves the right to make the necessary modifications and changes on receiving the text.”
The news was also published that the Latvian envoy in Moscow had made an identical declaration on behalf of his Government.
Litvinov last night was in a state of triumphant delight at the defeat he had administered to Beck, Foreign Minister of Poland. According to Litvinov and Radek the true story of Beck’s visit to Estonia is the following: Beck was able to persuade Selijamaa to agree to have Estonia stand with Poland in the negotiations with regard to the Eastern Locarno and Beck’s announcement to the press to this effect is said to have been based on actual statements by Selijamaa. The President of Estonia, Pats, under pressure from Great Britain, the Soviet Union and France then ordered Selijamaa to reverse his position.
Litvinov informed me that Selijamaa on arriving in Moscow had said that Beck had misunderstood his verbal remarks and that Beck’s statements to the press were “outrageously inaccurate.”
Litvinov added that he had already a pledge from Lithuania to enter the pact.
The Polish Ambassador last night was in a state of disordered agitation. He began a conversation with Radek with the remark “I am interested to see clearly that the Soviet Union has now disinterested itself entirely in the maintenance of friendly relations with Poland.” Radek expressed the fear that Litvinov’s triumph over Beck had been too dramatic and wounding and that wounded pride might lead Poland to hysterical opposition to the Eastern Locarno.
Litvinov expressed the opinion that Poland and Germany would make counterproposals for a series of bilateral pacts and that no agreement on the Eastern Locarno could be reached until late autumn.