Only for the time being? Possibly: many symptoms suggest that a full consensus in Cabinet on issues of European security is lacking. Perhaps Baldwin is waiting for a more appropriate moment to interfere. But for how long will the current situation continue?…

Our Soviet activity is now an important factor on the international scene. I think that the time has come to clarify our Soviet attitude to the communiqué of 3 February.

The Franco-British communiqué agreed to abolish the limitations set by the Versailles Agreement on the German armed forces and called for a new arms agreement to coincide with Germany’s return to the League of Nations, the conclusion of an Eastern Pact, and the preservation of Austrian independence; see Z. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European international history, 1933–1939 (Oxford, 2011), p. 83. The Soviet position is in DVP, 1935, XVIII, doc. 68.

To date we have merely maintained a dissatisfied silence. On 19 February I will be delivering a lecture on Soviet planning at the London conference of the League of Nations Union. The talk was agreed upon two months or so ago, but why not take advantage of the occasion for a serious statement about the problems of European security? I’ll ask M.M. [Litvinov].