Maisky had been instructed by Litvinov that any future agreement with Germany, France or England should be conditional on adherence to the ‘Eastern Pact’ and should exclude any revival of the ‘Pact of Four’, which had been signed by Britain, France, Italy and Germany on 15 July 1933 but which never came into force due to major disagreement between the signatories; DVP, 1934, XVII, doc. 437, 21 Dec. 1934.

Maisky’s report home was extremely succinct and, as would become his practice, attributed to Vansittart initiatives of his own that clearly exceeded his authority. It was Vansittart, he insisted, who ‘established’ that no points of necessary friction existed between the Soviet Union and Britain, while in fact the undersecretary of state was only cajoled into confirming Maisky’s long exposé. Maisky further concealed from Litvinov the fact that he had been wrong to assume that the foreign secretary intended to raise the whole scope of Anglo-Soviet relations in Cabinet and then send for him again. In fact, the FO records show that, when he did raise the issue with Vansittart, he was told that ‘in the case of normal and satisfactory relations the usual course was to let them take care of themselves, seeing only that they were maintained by normal diplomatic contacts’. Moreover, the northern department examined the record of the interview with Simon and established (tongue in cheek) that Maisky was ‘doubtless under a misapprehension’; DVP, 1934, XVII, doc. 431, and TNA FO 371 18306 N6953/16/38.