760F.62/1985
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
President Beneš84 called at his request. After the usual exchange of courtesies I said that, speaking in strict confidence, I had recently decided, in answer to a question from another Governmental agency regarding property matters, that I considered the Munich Agreement85 as conceived in fraud and in the utmost bad faith and that, therefore, it is null and void. He was gratified to learn of this view. I made clear to him that this had no connection whatever with the declaration of the British and Russians, et al, with respect to a reversal of their position on the Munich Agreement. Dr. Benes seemed immensely pleased to hear this. I said that it was not a difficult decision for me to make for the reason that I had been decidedly opposed to the Chamberlain86 appeasement policy in connection with the Munich incident.
I then brought up the Russian situation in the friendliest spirit toward Russia and urged the necessity for fuller and most friendly conference with Mr. Stalin on the question of prevailing on him to abandon his aloofness, secretiveness and suspicion and bring his Government more into the world family of nations in the way of international relations and international cooperation along the lines that other Governments like Great Britain and the United States are preaching. Dr. Benes agreed thoroughly and added he was going to meet Stalin for a conference within a few weeks.
I then said that if Russia would definitely and finally prohibit any further activities under the direction of the Third Internationale in the various nations of the world such as the South American nations, the United States and others, that single act alone would go further than all else to restore the most agreeable friendly relations between the people of Russia and other nations. Dr. Beneš said he agreed and that he was going to urge this step definitely on Mr. Stalin. He then added that the Russian plan is to do away with the Third Internationale activities, of which I complained, as soon as the war is over [Page 530] and to cooperate with other countries. To this I replied that it might be too late to unify the important nations of the world behind a suitable post-war program, especially with respect to Russia. I illustrated by saying that if today this Government and Great Britain should announce that they would make known their ideas and purposes with respect to certain basic questions such as keeping the peace and commercial policy only at the end of the war, this might well prove fatal to the setting up and maintenance of a suitable post-war international organization. For this very reason it was even more important that Russia proclaim this policy of suppressing communistic agitation under the Third Internationale in other countries now instead of at the end of the war. Dr. Beneš said that he could understand and fully approve this viewpoint and that he would press this home when he reached Moscow.
- Edward Beneš, President of the Czechoslovak Government in Exile, at London. President Beneš was on a wartime visit to the United States and Canada between May 8 and June 9. For his own descriptions of several meetings with the President and high officials of the government, see Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Beneš (London, 1954), pp. 180–187, and 193–196. Corresponding American records of these meetings are not in the files of the Department of State nor in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York.↩
- Signed on September 29, 1938, between Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy; for text, see Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. ii (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 1014, or Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1989, Third Series, vol. ii (London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1949), p. 627. For correspondence regarding the German-Czechoslovak crisis, see Foreign Relations, 1938, vol. i, pp. 483 ff.↩
- Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, 1937–40.↩