852.00/4024: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received December 8—1:20 p.m.]
361. My 360, December 5, 5 p.m. The Foreign Office is now completing its reply to the suggestions of the Non-intervention Committee.
In discussing the same the Foreign Office indicated today its strong desire to fall in with the Committee’s ideas as it realized the gravity of the situation and the desirability of availing of this opportunity to clear up the Spanish affair with all its potential dangers.
According to the Foreign Office the principal preoccupation of the British is to end the Civil War in Spain and to this end to secure agreement among the powers concerned for some form of plebiscite in Spain permitting the people there to signify their choice of government, this to be made after an armistice in the civil strife and in connection with a sort of self-denying agreement by those powers from whom “volunteers” and munitions have been reaching Spain. The Foreign Office seems to feel that it is difficult to find any practicable method for the settlement of the Civil War in Spain in such simple fashion although as stated above sympathetic with the idea and with the general purpose of safeguarding the international aspects of the situation affording what may be the last chance to avoid serious international complications.
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