711.00 Pres. Speech, Oct. 5, 1937/22: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:40 p.m.]
1408–1409. At luncheon today at the American Club Chautemps said to me that for perhaps the third time in his life and certainly for the first time in the last 10 years he had prepared a written address which he would read. He stated that he had done so in order to be particularly careful in what he said with reference to the President’s Chicago speech. He did not want to say anything which might give the appearance that the French Government understood the speech as promising some action by the United States; he felt that if there was any exaggerated interpretation given to the speech this might prove embarrassing to President Roosevelt and this was the last thing in the world which he desired to do. For this reason he was going to keep his references to the speech on the plane of “moral assistance”.
At the same time he said that he would give a great deal to be able to sit down quietly with President Roosevelt and ask exactly what he, the President, had in mind when he spoke of the peace-loving nations making “a concerted effort” in opposition to violations of treaties. He said that the address had caused him personally the greatest encouragement and hope.
He said that today the British and French Embassies in Rome were requesting that the Italian reply to the proposal for conversations on the Spanish question be expedited. He said that he had little hope of a favorable reply from Italy but that he intended to exhaust every possibility of drawing Italy into conversations regarding the Spanish question; that he did not care what form the conversations took so long as they took place and that he had made and was continuing to make every effort to see that this question of the approach to Italy did not take on the appearance of anything in the nature of an ultimatum or a threat. (I heard Chautemps say some days ago laughingly that he was the only pro-Italian member of his Government.)
Threatened opening the frontier, he thought that this could have little effect and [on] the course of events in Spain, since there were no appreciable quantities of arms and munitions in France belonging to private firms; and the French Government apart from the fact that [Page 136] for obvious reasons it would not desire itself to send arms into Spain, could not in any case in the present uncertain European situation deprive France of arms required for national defence. So far as permitting transit shipments was concerned, he saw no country which would be able to ship important quantities of munitions into Spain over French territory unless perhaps it was England, and he doubted very much if England would wish to do so.
[Here follows discussion of French domestic situation.]