852.00/6216½
The Ambassador in Spain (Bowers), Then in France, to President Roosevelt35
Dear Mr. President: The other day Kaltenborn of the Columbia Broadcasting called upon me to tell me of an interview with Mr. Chautemps in Paris in which the French Premier said that something should be done to end the tragedy in Spain through mediation; and that the perfect mediators, because they have been neutral, would be you and the Pope. It is possible that you have been approached upon this subject. Under these circumstances I feel it incumbent on me to give you my opinion that at this juncture it would be taking too great a risk for you to give the suggestion favorable consideration. My impression is that France and England have made a miserable mess of their nonintervention which they have not even tried to enforce honestly, and that they have thus prolonged the war, and they are anxious now for some one to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
I cannot conceive that there is the slightest disposition at this moment for either the Government or the Rebels with their allied forces to consider the making of any such concessions as would be in the least acceptable to the other party.
The trouble all along, particularly with the British Government, has been due to its apparent inability to grasp the real significance of this Spanish struggle. This is not an old-fashioned South American war in which ambitious and unscrupulous individuals fight for personal power. On the contrary the contest involves the most elemental and fundamental things in the world—the division of people along lines that strike deep into history and human nature. The differences are utterly irreconcilable. Primarily it is the difference between the fascist and the democratic concept of the state. That has many ramifications involving what we call liberty, human rights, the very organization of society, the relations of church and state. On these matters the better part of both sides are prepared to fight to the death. For either side to yield to the other’s ideas on any of these subjects would be to surrender completely. And neither side is ready to do that now.
[Page 373]This week I was talking with a pro-Franco man from San Sebastian who expressed his astonishment and discouragement because the loyalists are not in the least discouraged. With just as much reason to be discouraged, it is equally true that the Franco followers are not. Both sides still are fighting with the enthusiasm and optimism of zealots.
Under existing conditions I am quite sure that neither side would fail to resent any suggestion of mediation at this juncture.
Unquestionably it is true, however, that great numbers on both sides are tired, and in time they will become discouraged, and then they may be eager enough to find a way out if the plan proposed provides for a general amnesty. The Government would agree to that on condition that the status of June 1936 be restored. But would the Franco side, considerably under the domination of Germany and Italy, agree? It seems incredible. And it is just as incredible that the loyalists would consider amnesty for themselves a sufficient consideration for the abandonment of the constitutional democratic government of Spain.
I am amused at the suggestion of M. Chautemps that the Pope has been a neutral. He is just as neutral as he was in the case of Abyssinia. He is a very loyal Italian always. He has been favorable to the fascist cause in Spain, supported by 70,000 of Mussolini’s army, throughout. There are domestic political reasons why it would be better to be associated with any other statesman in the world as mediator than with the Pope. Differences of opinion between the mediators could easily have too many political repercussions in the United States.
At this time the difficulties of accommodating differences in Spain seem insurmountable. The least the Government could accept would be amnesty followed by a complete acceptance of the constitutional government of the Republic. Even in the matter of amnesty it certainly could not consent to the restoration of the disloyal Generals to their previous rank. The Government could not consent to the abandonment of its social program, and the great landowners, industrialists and bankers would insist on that.
Mr. DeCaux, for twenty years the correspondent of the London Times in Madrid, who knows his Spain, and is a conservative and Catholic, surprised me the other day with the suggestion that the war could be ended only through mediation on the basis of the restoration of the Constitution of 1931, which he said had not been observed. I know of no violation of the Constitution by the Azaña people during the two and a half years of their régime before the Rights came in. I have never heard one charged. Under the Right Coalition Government there was a direct violation of the Constitution in the payment of parish priests out of the public treasury, since this specifically was [Page 374] forbidden by the Constitution; and there was a negative violation in the abandonment of all pretence at building up a public school system.
So I can see no present hope in mediation, no possible formula of reconciliation that does not carry with it a complete defeat for one side or the other.
The issues here are so fundamental and have been for four years, and they have been supported with such violent partisanship that I was convinced long ago that peace could come to Spain only after an armed conflict. Now I am convinced that the end can come only when one side or the other is exhausted physically or financially. When that condition approaches for one side or the other, it may be willing to lay down its arms if general amnesty is offered.
But I am afraid that for any outsider to offer mediation now would be generally resented. It is well to bear in mind Spain’s historic reaction through the centuries to all attempts of other nations to interfere in her internal affairs.
Your historic status is too commanding it seems to me to risk it at this juncture in an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable in a foreign controversy. Our enviable position among the Powers, due to the acknowledgement from both sides that our neutrality has been rigid and honest, can easily be compromised if under existing conditions we permit ourselves to be precipitated into the very heart of the bitterest of domestic quarrels.
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Sincerely,
- Photostatic copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y. This letter was transmitted to the Secretary of State on August 23, 1937, by the President, to be read and returned. The Secretary of State returned it with the notation “I agree. C. H.”↩