852.00/8688: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Secretary of State
49. The French Ambassador by instruction of his Government cam, to see me yesterday afternoon and left with me an aide-mémoire of which the following is a translation:
“At the same time that bad weather conditions are suspending military operations in Spain, an increasing feeling of weariness on both sides is seizing the masses of the people who are seeing less and less clearly their ideological antagonisms and are realizing with constantly increasing distress the destructions which have been accomplished.
In this state of mind, if an appeal for the cessation of hostilities was made publicly and solemnly at Lima by the Pan American Conference, which has just consecrated for the new world an international peace order, it can be hoped that such a declaration would have a profound and perhaps decisive reaction in Red Spain as well as in White Spain. In fact, the Conference certainly represents for all of Spain a high moral force which no party would dare to dispute.
If the South American republics assembled at Lima took such an initiative, the French Government would be disposed to support it with all of the discretion and all of the decisiveness which might be desired, in accordance, it is needless to say, with the Government of the United States and the Government of Great Britain.”
In reply to this communication I said to the Ambassador that I was not as yet advised whether in fact any such step was being contemplated by the Conference. I said, expressing my own opinion, that such a step could only usefully be taken if it was taken unanimously by all of the twenty-one republics and that I did not yet know whether there was any unanimity of sentiment in this regard. I further expressed the opinion that if the French Government let it be known publicly that it was supporting such a move or that it was communicating with other governments in support of such a move, the publicity resulting would in all probability make it completely impossible for the Conference to take any step, even if the twenty-one republics so desired, because of the opportunity which would be afforded to the Franco regime to announce publicly in advance that such an attempt at mediation would not be acceptable to it.
If there are any representations you would like me to make to the French Government beyond those I have indicated, please let me know.7
- The Secretary of State apparently made no reply to this telegram.↩