Vansittart phoned me today and said that the Cabinet has decided to send Eden to Moscow. Simon will make an announcement after dinner in parliament.

V. wants to discuss the date of the visit and other details with me personally early next week (today is Thursday).

I made some complimentary remarks about Eden, but added that I had been authorized to hand the official invitation to Simon or to Simon and Eden. Now that the situation had changed, I would have to approach Moscow for instructions once again. Vansittart did not object. In conclusion he made a meaningful remark: he implores me to believe that the decision on sending Eden is the maximum that could have been achieved at the current stage. I understand.

So, Eden is going! Very good! There is no doubt that this is a historic step.

In conveying the decision, Maisky pressed Litvinov to receive Eden, producing a misleading argument that ‘at present the whole Berlin visit hangs in the air and it is not clear whether it will take place at all’; DVP, 1935, XVIII, doc. 102 & fn. 60.