740.00119 European War 1939/104: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Bullitt ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5 p.m.]
2547. James Mooney, President of the General Motors Overseas Corporation, who came to Paris from Berlin yesterday called on me this morning and made the following statement:
Richter, lawyer of the General Motors works in Hesse, had talked to him about the desirability of ending the present war and had suggested that he should see Wohltat and Ribbentrop in Berlin. He had seen Wohltat who had arranged for him to see Goering. He had talked with Goering last Wednesday for two hours and a half. He had gathered that Goering did not wish him to see Ribbentrop.
Goering had stated that before beginning a serious war on the Western front he and that section of the Nazi Party which he represented desired to be certain that there was no possibility of making peace at the present time with France and England. He was not at all sure what Chamberlain and Daladier’s speeches meant and he was not at all sure that they knew what the Fuehrer’s latest speech meant. He thought therefore that a representative of the German Government should meet a representative of the British Government and perhaps also a representative of the French Government in a neutral country to make clear the points of view of the three Governments in order that if possible peace might be arranged now.
Mooney said that Goering had asked him to talk with Ambassador Kennedy and myself and try to get us to arrange such a conversation.
Mooney said that Goering did not believe that the German Army could break the resistance of the French Army. He seemed to think, however, that there was a chance that the German air force and submarines might be very annoying to the British fleet and merchant shipping.
Goering had said to him that if France and England should be willing to make peace now Germany would set up some sort of an autonomous Polish state with German control of its foreign relations and military defenses in the portion of Poland now held by Germany. Germany would also set up a similar state with cultural autonomy in the Czech portion of Czechoslovakia.
Goering indicated that he had no confidence in the continuance of cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union and intimated that he would like to have an arrangement with France and England which would enable Germany to throw out the Bolsheviks from the portion of Europe which they now had seized.
Mooney requested me to urge the French Government to accept this proposal.
[Page 520]I replied that I could not urge the French Government to accept such a proposal or any other proposal without instructions from you to do so and I did not believe that you would wish to give me any such instructions.
I said, however, that I could inform the French Government of what Goering had said to him; but added that I believed the French Government would not be drawn into such a conversation.
Mooney requested me to urge Ambassador Kennedy to persuade the British Government to take up this proposal. I replied that I could not urge Ambassador Kennedy to do so, but could merely inform him that Mr. Mooney was coming to London. Ambassador Kennedy telephoned me while Mooney was with me and I informed him that Mooney would call on him with a story from Berlin.