765.84/1314: Telegram
The Minister in Switzerland (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 23—10:40 a.m.]
309. I had a brief talk with Eden yesterday which contrasts with the relative optimism prevailing. Eden stated that the affair was just as bad as it could be. Rocco of the Italian delegation had called on him Sunday morning and reported to him the “observations” which Aloisi had reported to Madariaga.80 According to Eden these observations were merely criticism of the “suggestions” and further insistence upon the fact that the suggestions did not provide for the vital necessities of Italy. There was, said Eden, no opportunity offered for further discussion. The Committee of Five could not continually make new advances to Mussolini when he merely repulsed each advance without stating what he wanted. Indeed it was only with the greatest reluctance that some of the members of the Committee of Five went as far as the last suggestions.
But if they could not make a further offer to Mussolini, nevertheless, the moment was one which called for infinite patience and if the matter was at once reported to the Council the machinery of the League might clank along in any direction. It seemed to Eden therefore that the time had probably come to make a final effort to get Mussolini to state with precision and publicly his own demands. Of [Page 656] course, if those demands were the same as those stated in private to Laval and him in Paris they would certainly be unacceptable to the Council.
Although Eden spoke to me entirely on his own initiative and appeared to be thinking out loud, I found him hesitating in his expressions as if wondering how far he could go with me on matters of such vital policy. In view of this, may I suggest that in any conversations you may have on the subject Eden’s name be kept entirely out of it.
Cipher to Paris, London, Rome.
- Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish permanent delegate to the League of Nations,↩