740.0011 European War 1939/17335
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Minister of Finland called to see me this morning at his request. The Minister stated that he had tried urgently to see me yesterday in the hope that some way might still be found to avoid the declaration of a state of war between his country and Great Britain. I told the Minister that I was extremely sorry that I had had engagements which took me well into the late evening and which had made it impossible for me to see him until this morning. The Minister then said that he recognized that the situation yesterday had already reached a point where nothing further could be done. He asked what I thought the future would bring forth. I said that I was neither empowered nor authorized to speak for the British Government but that it seemed to me from a personal standpoint that, were the Government of Finland to cease hostilities in the immediate future and announce its willingness to discuss peace terms with the Soviet Union, a situation might develop which would result in a renewal of relations between Great Britain and Finland and which would most decidedly create a far more favorable and friendly opinion in the United States with regard to Finland. I said if the present situation were allowed to continue for any length of time and if the Finns permitted themselves to be inveigled by the Germans into any real alliance or into the taking of steps which would involve an attempt to cut off the delivery of supplies to the Soviet Union, through Archangel, by the United States and Great Britain, I felt sure that the conditions resulting from such a situation would be very tragic in their consequences for Finland. I spoke in high terms of the contributions which Finland [Page 116] and the Finnish people had made to civilization during the past twenty years and said again, as I have said so often to the Minister, that it was inconceivable that the Finnish people would now cast in their lot with Hitler with the full knowledge that any ultimate success of Hitler would result in their own enslavement.
The Minister seemed completely dejected and not disposed to make his usual arguments.