760F.62/264: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 16—6:40 p.m.]
411. For the Secretary and Under Secretary. My 407, May 14, 6 p.m. Saw Lord Halifax this afternoon. With regard to the Czechoslovak situation he told me that Henderson, the Ambassador in Berlin, had seen German officials on Friday or Saturday and much to their surprise the Germans instead of telling them to mind their own business had said they hoped the British would continue to exert their influence on the Czechs to make a workable arrangement for the Germans. They asked whether the French were part and parcel of the plan to urge Beneš to be reasonable in his treatment of the Germans and Henderson assured them that they were. Again Hitler expressed his supreme contempt for the French. Halifax said that on his way back from Geneva he stopped off and saw Bonnet who urged him to work as hard as he could for a settlement in Czechoslovakia so that the French would not be faced with a crisis which they definitely do not want to face.
Halifax believes that Henlein did not come here without Hitler’s assent and that his main purpose was to get a reaction and see what he could do with first hand talks to convince some of the people in England that his Carlsbad speech was not so far off the line of possibility. Incidentally Ribbentrop told Henderson that the Carlsbad speech was a good starting point for the negotiations.
Halifax said that he had asked the Rumanian Minister, a great friend of Beneš, whether his impression that Beneš was a great promiser but not a great deliverer was still correct. The answer was that Beneš hated the Germans and that is why he got himself up to his eyes in the League of Nations. When that started to weaken he turned to Russia and France and with the situations in those countries looking a little shaky he is very likely to be reasonable in his dealings [Page 505] with Henlein. I asked Halifax whether he thought Henlein could hold his followers in line and he said he thought that very likely Henlein could, especially if he talked with assurances from Berlin. On the whole Halifax said he felt fairly optimistic about the situation. He says he still remembers that in his personal conversation Hitler reserved to himself the right to expand in Eastern and Central Europe among his own people but that he does not want to go to war. So Halifax says that the British are trying to keep to the attitude of saying to Germany, “Now we are urging Beneš to make a reasonable and sensible deal” but at the same time saying, “Be as reasonable as you should because if you touch the spring it may go off and then you may not do as well as you think”—a sort of veiled threat.
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