852.00/5557: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 29—5:40 p.m.]
175. Consulate’s 173, May 29, 5 p.m.93 The crux of the Spanish question before the League turned on the efforts of Eden to divert the issue from Geneva to the London Committee by magnifying the latter’s accomplishments and its prospects of success and the efforts of Del Vayo to obtain League affirmation of the facts of foreign aggression in Spain. In these efforts Eden was to a degree supported by Delbos and Sandler94 and Del Vayo by Litvinoff.
The final resolution was the result of protracted private negotiations between the British and the Spanish and was the subject of a series of secret Council meetings. From confidential sources I learn as follows:
Del Vayo did not ask for a specific mention of Italy and Germany in the resolution but demanded that it state in definite terms that the Spanish people must be permitted to control their own destiny. In particular he asked that a date be set for the withdrawal of foreign combatants. He took violent exception to Eden’s reference to “two parties” as placing them on an equal footing and to Eden’s characterization of the foreign troops as “volunteers” in the face of the proofs of Italian intervention which he had submitted to the Council. While he did not gain the inclusion in the resolution of the two points mentioned above he presented his contentions respecting Eden’s statements in a declaration to the Council after the adoption of the resolution.
Del Vayo based his arguments on the technical position under the League Covenant. He declared it to be common knowledge supported by proofs which he had submitted to the Council that acts of aggression had taken place. The League was thus stultified and refused to recognize the existence of this aggression. He stated privately, [Page 306] however, that he would not push this position to the extent of “wrecking” the League which would be against his interests.
Litvinoff supported Del Vayo by asserting that not to recognize that an act of aggression had occurred would be to give up the entire international position respecting aggression and render ludicrous the efforts of League to define an aggression while concurrently refusing to recognize a flagrant example. On the other hand Litvinoff granted that nothing should be done to disintegrate the London Committee.
I obtained definite information that the Spanish Delegation had in its possession documents respecting German intervention somewhat parallel to the documents respecting Italy. They were issued by the Basque Government. Pierce, representative of the London Times, who had just returned from Bilbao showed me an extensive collection of photographs of documents respecting German participation in the Bilbao campaign with particular reference to the bombardment of Guernica. Among these was a map annotated by directions in German for the aerial bombardment of Guernica and he asserted that the actual bombardment fulfilled these directions. He said that part of this material was included in the Basque document to which I have referred. He stated further that he had sent this data to his paper which had not published it.
I learn that although Del Vayo refused as completely inconsistent the British request that he make no mention of Germany in his statements he nevertheless agreed not to present documents respecting Germany. A member of the Spanish delegation explained to me that they had been persuaded that Berlin really desired to withdraw German nationals from Spain and that it would thus be bad tactics to unduly irritate Berlin at this moment.