Office of the Historian

852.00/3416: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Henderson) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, October 9, 1936—8 p.m.
[Received October 9—3:30 p.m.]

236. The following is a brief summary of what a responsible official of the Foreign Office told me yesterday regarding the considerations responsible for the despatch of the Soviet note of October 7 to the International Committee on Non-intervention in Spain.77

(1)
For a whole month the Committee has taken no effective steps in the direction of seeing that the agreement of non-intervention was being carried out.
(2)
The Italian representative has continuously blocked the efforts of the Soviet representative to have investigations made of alleged violations of the agreement by insisting that it was first necessary to discuss the question of inducing other powers to become parties to the agreement and to determine whether or not the agreement should be amended so as to include obligations not to give moral support, money or foodstuffs to one or the other combatants.
(3)
The British Chairman has consistently sided with the Italian representative, and the French Government instead of aiding the Soviet representative has on several occasions suggested privately to the Soviet Government that the raising of questions regarding alleged violations is likely to result only in unprofitable friction.
(4)
Portugal in the meantime has made little effort to conceal the fact that it is furnishing the rebels with military supplies, while Germany and Italy have been almost as brazenly assisting the rebels in a similar manner.
(5)
The Soviet Government has therefore come to the conclusion that unless it takes a firm stand in the matter the Committee will continue to view with equanimity violations by Germany, Italy and Portugal.
(6)
It is determined to withdraw its representative from the Committee and to denounce the agreement unless the Committee shows itself determined to bring about an immediate cessation of the violations.
(7)
The Soviet Government is not as yet prepared to state what steps it will take following such a denunciation. Its actions will be decided by future developments and the exigencies of the moment.

Copy sent to Paris.

Henderson
  1. See London Times, October 8, 1936, p. 14e.↩