740.00/1327
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)
The French Ambassador56 called this morning to talk over the Hitler speech. He said that he was worried largely because it was clear that Hitler was trying to deal separately with all his neighbors rather than to give any collective guarantees.
He asked for my impressions. I told the Ambassador that in the first place it struck me that Hitler had distorted the purpose for which the President sent his message and treated it as a “trick” rather than as a genuine appeal in the interest of peace. In the second place, it struck me that Germany was according herself a freer hand and a greater area of diplomatic maneuverability by the abrogation of her pacts with Great Britain on navies and with Poland on non-aggression. In the third place, it struck me that Hitler was developing a new conception; he no longer talked of reuniting Germans with the Fatherland, but he talked of a German Empire and its need for room, wealth, colonies, et cetera.
The Ambassador agreed with these comments. He added, however, that he felt the speech was a defensive speech and showed a certain defensive mentality vis-à-vis his own public opinion. He thought that large sections of it had been written here in Washington by either the German Embassy or the German News Service. The argumentation followed too closely the line of the opposition press in this country. I replied that while the dialectic was adroit, it was based on a false premise, namely, that there was an analogy to be drawn between a conference which ended a war (Versailles) and a conference before a war, which was designed to prevent a war.
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All in all, the Ambassador felt that history would write the President’s move down as a constructive move. At the very worst, it gave a two weeks’ breathing spell; probably it accomplished a lot more, which would become apparent only gradually.
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- René Doynel, Count de Saint-Quentin.↩