711.00 Statement July 16, 1937/200
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)
The Rumanian Minister called this morning to discuss the Secretary’s statement of July 16th and Mr. Welles’ speech at Charlottesville a week or two previously.26 He said that he had been disturbed, and he felt his Government was likewise, by the continuing hints being thrown out by the American Government in favor of a revision of the peace treaties; he felt that a sharp differentiation should be drawn between territorial revision and other forms of revision; most of the non-territorial points of difference have now been settled, notably reparations, re-armament, demilitarized zones, etc., etc.; he felt, however, that no territorial revision could be brought about in Europe without war and felt that we were assuming a grave responsibility if we encouraged any of the “have not” powers to think that they could get what they desired.
Turning more specifically to Germany, the Minister believed that the time was not too far distant when the present regime must decide either in favor of a foreign war or in favor of a policy of liberalization, which was, however, contradictory with the terms of Nazi-ism; German recovery could only be brought about by aid from western democracies and these in turn would only offer their aid in case Germany pledged herself to a peaceful policy and economic non-discrimination; he thought there was far more opposition in Germany to the present regime than generally credited abroad, but that this factor was a source of danger and not of strength.
Mr. Davila remarked that the failure of Rumania to reply thus far to the Secretary’s statement of July 16th was due to the recent absence of the King and his present pre-occupation with a pending Cabinet reconstruction.
[Page 783]I told the Minister that we were going to publish on Sunday and hoped that the Rumanian reply would be forthcoming by that date.
- For the address “Present Aspects of World Peace”, delivered July 7, 1937, before the Institute of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., see Department of State publication No. 1042.↩