Yesterday evening Eden invited Litvinov, Agniya and myself to have lunch with him today at 1.30. This morning the marshal of the diplomatic corps (Sir Sidney Clive

Lieutenant General Sir Sidney Clive, marshal of the diplomatic corps, 1934–45.

) informed me that the king was granting a private audience to Litvinov at 2.30 in the afternoon. Then Baldwin’s secretary phoned to say that the prime minister was expecting Litvinov today at 3.30. I had to phone Eden and ask him to shift our lunch to one o’clock.

We had lunch in Eden’s private apartment. It was my first visit to Eden’s home. Nothing special or splendid. An ordinary middle-class English house, rather cold, with second-hand furniture and a faintly Bohemian flavour. A pile of gramophone records lay on the floor of the drawing room: waltzes, foxtrots and polkas. There were a few fine pictures on the walls and a couple of Vigeland

Adolf Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor.

prints in the dining room. We arrived a little bit early: Eden was still at a Cabinet meeting, and Mrs Eden was busy with housework. Eden arrived with Duff Cooper, the war minister. We sat down in a small dining room downstairs, at a table which could accommodate no more than ten. For some reason I found myself to the right of the mistress of the house, and Litvinov to her left. Duff Cooper’s wife, an exceptionally beautiful and impressive lady, floated in half an hour late. There were no serious conversations. There was talk about the League of Nations’ new building, the military programme of the British government, Eden’s trip to Moscow, the Russian theatre and ballet. Duff Cooper hinted that he would like to make a trip to the USSR. His wife eagerly supported the project. M.M. invited them to come for 1 May. I chatted quietly with Mrs Eden on a variety of general topics and said that to my mind outstanding people always come from the provinces or the countryside. Capital cities wear people out quickly, consuming far too much of their nervous energy in vain. As a result, citizens in the capital (those who’ve lived there since childhood) become physically and mentally wasted. Even those with innate talents lack the juices to develop them properly. I illustrated my idea with a number of examples taken from British life. My words seemed to impress Mrs Eden greatly. She became concerned and agitated, and exclaimed at the end of our conversation: ‘I shall now keep my sons in the provinces for longer.’ On parting, we arranged with Duff Cooper to have lunch in our embassy, where he could meet Tukhachevsky. As he said goodbye from the staircase, Eden told Litvinov: ‘If you would like to have a talk with me, I am at your service.’

Litvinov headed straight to the palace, while Agniya and I went home. The reception given by the king was very courteous and amicable. Litvinov had to wait about five minutes in Edward’s anteroom, because the latter had an unexpected visit from the king of Norway,

King Haakon VII of Norway (born Christian Frederik), 1905–57.

who was leaving that day. Edward sent his aide to Litvinov to apologize for the delay. When Litvinov was ushered in, the king made his personal apology. Their conversation lasted 50 minutes instead of the normal 15 or 20 – at the king’s will. It was a very wide-ranging dialogue. Edward skipped from one topic to another, asking questions and waiting for Litvinov to answer them. Some were of a very delicate nature. For example, Edward asked why and under what circumstances Nicholas II was killed. Was it not because revolutionaries feared his reinstatement? M.M. explained to Edward that Nicholas II was killed when the Czechoslovakians were approaching Ekaterinburg. The local authorities feared that the city would be captured by the Czechs. There was no time to contact central government, so they themselves made the decision to have the emperor executed. Edward asked: ‘But was there a central government at the time?’ M.M. gave him the necessary information. Then Edward mentioned Trotsky and asked why he was deported from the USSR. M.M. again gave the required explanation, stressing the debate about the possibility or otherwise of building socialism in one country. The king listened to him attentively and then said, as if the penny had dropped: ‘So Trotsky is an international communist whereas you are all national communists.’ Then Edward inquired about various aspects of the Soviet constitution, and M.M. gave the relevant explanations. In the sphere of foreign policy, the king was interested in our relations with Germany and Poland. M.M. said that we want good relations with both countries and work in that direction but, unfortunately, without much success so far. The USSR’s policy is a policy of peace. ‘Yes,’ Edward responded, ‘all nations want peace, nobody wants war.’ In the course of conversation, he also remarked: ‘Germany and Italy have nothing at all. They are dissatisfied. Something should be done to improve their condition as far as raw materials, trade, etc. are concerned.’ M.M. added that there was Japan to think about, too. All three countries are either waging war or are preparing for one. They are aggressors. The King admitted that Japan also had to be included in the aggressive trio. As to the League of Nations, Edward had some doubts: he was afraid that the League might spread war all over Europe as a result of its efforts. There was the sense that Edward regretted the failure of the Hoare–Laval plan.

That is what I remember of M.M.’s account of his conversation with the king. On the whole, the king impressed M.M. as a lively and spirited man, with a keen interest in world affairs.

After his talk with the king, Litvinov went to see Baldwin. Their conversation was brief, lasting 15 or 20 minutes, and rather trivial. Litvinov later referred to it as an innocent talk. Baldwin told M.M. (as he also told me last summer) that he had studied Russian at the beginning of the war, that he was fond of Russian literature, that Sir Bernard Pares (director of the School of Slavonic Studies in London) was his schoolmate, and so on. No serious questions were touched upon.

We went to the cinema in the evening. A bad idea. We saw Top Hat

The quintessential Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film.

– a very silly comedy, which M.M. did not enjoy. After the movies we dined at Scotts, a restaurant opened in the 1850s.