760F.62/1105: Telegram
The President of Czechoslovakia ( Beneš ) to President Roosevelt
[Received 1:35 p.m.]
Mr. President: I am deeply moved by your cable message. It reached me at a moment when our country and our nation are feeling so intensely the menace of war. For 20 years our successive Governments have pursued a policy of peace. They have abided by the principle of settling all international disputes by peaceful means. They have concluded treaties of arbitration. They have supported the peace policy of the League of Nations and they have never offered [offended?] against all that line of conduct. Our Government also signed the Briand–Kellogg Pact and will in no case do anything that [Page 664] would violate it. Although Czechoslovakia has already made greatest sacrifices in the negotiations up to now, sacrifices which touch that country’s vital interests, it does not break off negotiations, desirous of seeing the conflict solved by peaceful means by agreement. Czechoslovakia has also signed a treaty of arbitration with Germany, has already proposed to settle the present dispute under its terms and is ready to renew this offer. Czechoslovakia is grateful to you, Mr. President, for your message, a message which in these grave moments can contribute towards a just solution of the dispute. I believe that even today the dispute could be settled in a spirit of equity without resort to force and the whole Czechoslovak nation still hopes this will be the case. The Czechoslovak nation would defend itself were it attacked but it is profoundly convinced with you that in the end war solves no problem and that this is a case in which reason, a sense of humanity and the principle of justice should triumph.