500.A15A5/648: Telegram
The Consul General at Beirut (Marriner), Temporarily at Paris, to the Secretary of State
[Received February 4—11 a.m.]
92. This morning I talked with Massigli46 and asked him if he thought any progress was being made in getting Germany into the naval discussions in London. He said that the British were most anxious to do so as they had not been satisfied with the appeasement arising out of their naval agreement with Germany last year. He said that it appeared that the Germans were willing to make further concessions in order to come into any international discussion on armaments but that the French felt that they must profit by this to obtain discussion on other arms, notably on air.
I said that in my opinion France had many times missed an opportunity to obtain some real measure of disarmament in certain arms by a continued insistence on obtaining reduction or limitation of all of them at once.
Massigli said that he realized the danger of missing the present opportunity and felt that in time something could be done to take advantage of the desires of Germany to enter into discussion on the naval question and perhaps a formula could be found by which an agreement could be concluded and ratification of it postponed awaiting the fulfillment of certain other conditions or at least sufficient delays intervene to give time for progress toward limitation or reduction in the other arms.
- René Massigli, Assistant Director of Political and Commercial Affairs, French Ministry for Foreign Affairs.↩