760F.62/1622
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Minister of Rumania called to see me this morning primarily to greet me upon my return to the Department. The Minister asked me what my impressions as to the future in Europe might be and I replied in general terms, expressing the overwhelming relief of this Government that war had been averted and my own personal hope that the statesmen of Europe would seize this opportunity to seek, in a spirit of equity and justice, the immediate solution of the other controversies existing in Europe which have for so long threatened the peace of the Continent. I said I hoped also that the Far Eastern question might prove susceptible to a peaceful solution. In that way I said I thought the world could move forward with the limitation and reduction of armaments and the placing of international economic relations on a healthy basis. The Minister said he thoroughly concurred and felt optimistic.
The Minister then asked if we had any information indicating that Hungary would seek the cession by Rumania of the Hungarian minorities within Rumania to Hungary. He indicated that there was a strip along the Rumanian-Hungarian frontier within Rumania which was populated in its large majority by Hungarians and that he believed Hungary would seek such a cession of territory. I said I had no reports whatever to such effect. The Minister said that as a result of the recent situation the relations between Yugoslavia and Rumania had become extraordinarily close and that the present relationships between the Regent of Yugoslavia and the King of Rumania were exceedingly intimate. He said the relations between Rumania and Germany were good, owing in part he believed to the fact that when he was Air Minister he had arranged for the purchase by his Government from Germany of various naval vessels and airplanes. He seemed to take the threatened Hungarian demand with equanimity and so far as I could gather had no objection to some solution.
The Minister complained somewhat bitterly about the attitude of the press in this country in continuing to inveigh against Hitler and Mussolini and said that at this time above all others a reasonable attitude on the part of the dictators could only be brought about by the press in the democracies refraining from all personal and unjustifiable attacks against them. I reminded the Minister of the liberty of the press in this country. The Minister said that insofar as his own Government was concerned the press in the United States [Page 83] had been much fairer recently, due in a large part he thought to the tolerance which had been shown by his Government in recent months towards the Jews and other minorities in Rumania.