500.A15a4/377
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the French Chargé (Henry)
The French Chargé called to tell me that M. Claudel was absent and would probably return with General Pétain in October. M. Henry said he had been in France when I was there, and we discussed the events of last summer.
[Page 524]I took occasion first of all to tell him of the high opinion I had formed of M. Laval during my meetings with him, telling M. Henry that Laval had been extremely frank and friendly and that my conferences with him had given me a better understanding of Laval’s views and much greater hope for the result of the conferences which were now going on between France and Germany. I repeated this at the end of our conversation and begged Henry to express my strong appreciation of these facts in his reports to Laval. He said he would do so.
Henry mentioned the difficulty of public sentiment between France and the United States as shown during this summer in their press. He said that since his return he had been reading the American press clippings and found a great outburst of hostility to France. I told him that this might easily be explained by the fact that the average American saw the outburst of optimism which greeted the first announcement of the Hoover moratorium plan when our markets went up and everybody felt happy and rich; then the same people saw the collapse of this optimism which took place during the delay of the period of negotiations with France and they attributed the collapse of the plan to the French delay. I told him I did not do this myself because I felt that the causes of the crisis were so deep-seated that it probably would have come anyhow but that it was not unnatural to have the contrary conclusion drawn here in America. He said he understood that. I told him that during those negotiations, Mr. Hoover and we in the State Department felt the imperative importance of holding back such an outburst of public resentment here and that I knew the President had done everything in his power to prevent antagonism in our press. I told him that I myself even after I had left America and was on the sea counseled the same attitude in my telegrams and that I knew Mr. Castle in the Department had done the same thing here. He expressed his appreciation of this.
I then told him how I had been rather appalled by the hostile outburst of expression towards us by the French press. Henry said he appreciated that also and the trouble was that the French people were not sufficiently acquainted with foreign affairs. I said that that was probably true of both of our nations.
M. Henry then brought up the disarmament question and said he was troubled because we were so far apart on disarmament. I took occasion to say that I had been encouraged by the steps taken during the summer in the shape of the bilateral meetings between the Ministers of France and Germany and of the other countries. Henry had said that France and America took opposite views, namely, that France held that security must precede disarmament, while we held that disarmament must precede security. I said that this was not exactly the way I looked at it; that I felt there were certain political [Page 525] questions the settlement of which must precede disarmament; that these questions were all European and that America had no direct interest in the way in which they were settled but it had a vital interest that they should each be settled by peaceful methods and not by war. I illustrated by the question of the boundary between Poland and Germany,31b He said he understood perfectly.
M. Henry then proceeded to express the hope that we could express our interest in peace, saying that our influence in Europe was the most important thing. His words were that we held the peace of Europe in our hands. I protested that that was not true although I realized how much moral influence we might have. He said he did not mean that extreme statement, but that our influence was very powerful. I asked him exactly what he thought we could do. He brought up the question of the consultative pact. I then went over that old question, recalling the different steps taken at London and telling him that I had been assured by M. Briand that my attitude was correct and that what France wanted was a security pact from Great Britain and that a purely consultative pact would not satisfy her. I pointed out that at that time in view of the respective demands of France and Great Britain a consultative pact could not be given without [danger of?] misunderstanding that it covered security. I referred to the press suggestion that a consultative pact would be useful in case of the use of the British Navy to support a blockade of the League of Nations in order to prevent a clash with our fleet, and I pointed out that in such a case consultation between the governments of Britain and America would be inevitable even if there was no consultative pact. He agreed. I told him further that it was my own opinion that in such a case there was now no danger that any American government would use the American fleet to support extreme doctrines of neutrality by force against a blockade which had been decreed by the League of Nations against an aggressor nation and which was being supported by the British fleet.
I then repeated my attitude towards the peace suggestion, applying it to the revision of the Versailles Treaty and telling him that we expressed no opinion as to the questions of revision which were being urged by Germany but only that we were deeply interested in having any such revision if it came made by peaceful methods and not by war, and I pointed out the importance of having the revision made promptly while the generation which had suffered by the war in each of the nations was in control of the government and before a new generation, which was ignorant of the ravages of war, had taken over the reins of government.