Lothian is obviously frightened by the bloc of three aggressors. The anti-communist pact signed in Rome on 6 November is directed against England and France in the first place and against the USSR only in the second. ‘It’s fine for you,’ Lothian exclaimed. ‘You enjoy an excellent geographical position; you are almost invulnerable. Moreover, everyone knows that Russia can’t be conquered. But what about us? We can be attacked from a dozen directions.’ Lothian questioned me thoroughly about the terms under which the USSR would be prepared to help England in the Far East. I replied that my personal opinion boiled down to the following. An agreement between the USSR and Britain on the Far East alone is of no value to us; only a general agreement of mutual assistance in both Europe and the Far East is conceivable. The simplest means of achieving this would be to revive the League of Nations: the USSR was and remains an ardent advocate of collective security. Lothian seemed somewhat disappointed.

What should be done to repel the menace looming over the British Empire? In Lothian’s opinion, help should be given to the Spanish government and China should be supported with money and weapons. If China could fight on, say, for another year, Japan would not be able to cope and would crack.

However, Lothian makes less sense on the subject of Central Europe. He considers the Anschluss and the annexation of Sudeten Germans to Germany to be preordained and finds nothing wrong in them: ‘The self-determination of nations!’, don’t you know. He is less happy about the prospect of German influence spreading to the Balkans, but here he would like the Soviet Union to assume the task of wrestling with Berlin. Just think how British statesmen of a previous generation would have reacted to attitudes of this kind!

Lothian expects little from Halifax’s visit to Berlin. In general, the whole trip has been poorly conceived and carried through. Chamberlain is to blame. He is very naive in matters of foreign policy and thinks that disputes between states can be settled in the same manner as disputes between two trading houses. Halifax complained to Lothian yesterday that the press had raised such a racket that he was ready to abandon the whole idea, but things had already gone too far and there was no way back.

On the whole, Lothian struck me as an extremely troubled and even frightened man. The British bourgeoisie must be having a very bad time of it, if even Lothian was speaking in such terms.