740.00/907: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 17—4:40 p.m.]
762. Daladier said to me this afternoon that he felt that the fact that Hitler had decided to answer the President’s message by the speech to the Reichstag on the 28th of April indicated merely that after conferring with Mussolini he did not dare to reject the President’s proposals without proposing some alternative—however specious.
Daladier went on to say that his own belief was that Hitler in his speech on the 28th would reply that he would be glad to give guarantees of non-aggression and to enter into discussions of disarmament and the reconstruction of international trade after the settlement of certain political questions which did not in any way concern the United States.
He thought that Hitler would then propose another Munich conference with all powers excluded except Germany, Italy, France and England.
He, Daladier, would, of course, be obliged to reject any such proposal and he hoped that the President would stick to the position that the promise of non-aggression should come first so that all questions might be discussed in a calm atmosphere and not at the point of a pistol. He, Daladier, positively would not talk about concessions to Germany and Italy under threat of war as at Munich.