852.00/6085: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 27—5:15 p.m.]
1060. An official at the Foreign Office tells us that they were taken by surprise at the unexpected development in the subcommittee of the Non-intervention Committee yesterday. He said that the minutes of the meeting made curious reading: that Grandi said in effect that the British questionnaire failed to make clear what he thought the British really had in mind and that therefore he had himself prepared a questionnaire which he felt would explain more clearly what the British intended. Plymouth had been ready to accept the Italian questionnaire but Corbin in order to put an end to the farce had proposed that they abandon the questionnaires entirely and revert to the text of the British plan of July 14, the interested governments to be requested to express their views in full on the text of the plan. This proposal and procedure had been adopted.
The official with whom we spoke said it looked as if the British were prepared to accept anything rather than have a show-down which might threaten to bring the possibilities of a general conflict nearer, that the British seemed to be reconciled to the possibility of a victory by Franco, evidently feeling that they could come to an agreement with him so as to protect their interests. He said that it was evident that the Italians, with German support, were playing for time, that they intended to drag out interminably the discussions relating to non-intervention feeling that Franco was gaining ground, and that with the assistance which they were continuing to send to Spain he would obtain a complete military victory.