I’ve seen many people over the last few days: the duchess of Atholl, Layton (News Chronicle), the Webbs, the chemical tycoon McGowan, the machine-tool builder Alfred Herbert,

Sir Alfred Edward Herbert, managing director of Alfred Herbert Ltd, the largest machine tool company in the world.

Horace Wilson (Chamberlain’s chief secretary), Roderick Jones (head of Reuters) and others. They all scold Japan, ooh and aah over British losses in China, raise their hands hopelessly and exclaim: ‘Ah, what can we do now?’ They speak about cooperation with the USA as a cure-all. The trouble is that the Americans do not want to cooperate, since they fear, not without reason, that the English want to use them and make the Americans pull chestnuts out of the fire for them.

Unknown to Maisky, Roosevelt consented to have periodical secret meetings of the British and US staffs. He insisted, though, that he wished to restrain Japan without resorting to belligerent action; D. Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–1941: A study in competitive cooperation (Chapel Hill, 1982), p. 30.

Some of my interlocutors (the duchess of Atholl and McGowan in particular) cautiously tried to sound me out about whether we would agree to support England in the Far East and what our terms might be if we did agree.

I replied in the following way. The USSR is well protected against any attack from the outside and can just wait for events to unfold. We see the struggle against Japanese aggression only as part of the struggle against any aggression within the framework of collective security. Why should the Far East be seen as an exception? Just because the English are being squeezed there? At any rate, I cannot conceive the possibility of any special agreements with England in a joint campaign against Japanese aggression alone. If, at long last, Great Britain wants to begin a serious campaign against aggression, all well and good. We shall support it and make our contribution, provided the struggle is carried out on a general scale, in the Far East and in Europe within the framework of the League of Nations. All the more so that now, with Italy having left the League and all major aggressors having fled from Geneva, peace-loving nations have an opportunity to turn the League of Nations into a united bloc of all peace-loving states. My interlocutors were somewhat disappointed.