The description of the meeting with Eden is typical of the subversive methods Maisky would adopt throughout his ambassadorship to convey to Moscow his own ideas, while attributing them to his interlocutors. It was the only effective way of doing so, particularly in the stifling atmosphere in Moscow following the purges in the late 1930s. In this particular case, it was Maisky’s plea for Litvinov to attend the League of Nations session, supposedly proposed by Eden, so that the two could meet and reinforce the rapprochement by further driving a wedge between Eden and Simon. This part is missing from the diary, but is in his official report in DVP, 1934, XVII, doc. 394 and in VSD, pp. 314–16.