23. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 651–3 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 188, l. 74–8: Slutsky); Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 234 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 188, l. 74–6).
24. DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 793–5 (Sargent: April 1, 1935), 795 (Simon to G. Clerk in Paris, April 1). “Laval,” one shrewd observer noted, “was very intelligent but he was also more cunning than competent. He wasn’t a man of clear-cut decisions but rather ‘everybody’s friend.’” Duroselle, France and the Nazi Threat, 87. In general, the French got caught up in “pactomania,” then sought loopholes in them.
25. A joint intelligence committee would be established in July 1936, but only at deputy director level; it would remain peripheral until summer 1939. In the 1930s, major militaries switched from medium to high frequencies for wireless, which, paradoxically, allowed more signals to be intercepted, but these still had to be decrypted. (Britain, after the end of the Great War, had not even tried to intercept German traffic again until 1934.) By 1935, Britain’s specialists had broken Japan’s main army and naval ciphers and some of Italy’s, but German, as well as Soviet, ciphers remained inaccessible. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 36–43, 52–3, 57, 61, 199–200; Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 158–60; West, MI6, 45, 48–9; Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 24.
26. Benjamin Disraeli, at the time Britain’s Tory party opposition leader, had admonished his fellow conservatives in 1872 that the choice was “whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and molded upon continental principles and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be a great country—an imperial country—a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to paramount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world.” Kebbel, Selected Speeches, 529–34 (at 534).
27. Holman, “Air Panic of 1935”; Levy, Appeasement and Rearmament; Neville, “Prophet Scorned?” British intelligence knew the claim of air parity to be false. Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 44 (citing CP 100[35], May 13, 1935, Cab 24/255; and AA Berlin to Director, AI, April 3, 1935, Air 2/1356); Vansittart, Mist Procession, 499; Winterbotham, Nazi Connection, 127–33.
28. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 228–39 (at 232–3, 235–6); DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 771–84 (Chilston to Simon, April 1).
29. Eden rose to answer that his mission aimed for an exchange of views in the quest for peace and toasted Litvinov’s health. The festivities ended at 1:30 a.m. Pravda, March 29, 1935; DVP SSSR, XVIII: 226–8; Eden, Facing the Dictators, 144–63.
30. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 164.
31. When Eden and Chilston broached the issue of expanding bilateral trade, Litvinov, according to the British notetaker, replied positively (“why not?”), but, according to the Soviet notetaker, stated that no negotiations were possible because of the British position on tsarist debts. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 240–5 (at 242–3); DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 784–91.
32. Eden found the exchange enigmatic. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 156.
33. DVP SSSR, XVIII: 246–251; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 521; Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 98–101.
34. On the evening of March 29, Eden was taken to Swan Lake at the Bolshoi, where the orchestra played “God Save the King,” the British anthem. He was also afforded a ride on the new Moscow metro and a visit to the aircraft factory at Fili, just outside Moscow, which produced the TB-3 heavy bomber. Eden, Facing the Dictators, 155–60. The British omitted their full record of the Eden-Stalin conversation from the published document collection. See also DBFP, 2nd series, XII: 803–10 (Eden and Beck in Warsaw, April 2–3, 1935), 812–7 (Eden and Beneš in Czechoslovakia, April 4). By early 1936, after Eden would become foreign secretary, he would no longer doubt German aggressiveness, according to Maisky. DVP SSSR, XIX: 77 (conversation Feb. 11, 1936).
35. The idea had grown out of the secret cooperation with Germany, but “deep operations” offered a more comprehensive vision. Triandafillov, Kharakter operatsii sovremennykh armii; Isserson, Evolution of Operational Art, 43–76; Savushkin, Razvitie sovetskikh vooruzhennykh sil, 59–62; Iakov, V. K. Triandafillov; Harrison, Russian Way of War, 194–217; Habeck, Storm of Steel, 206–28.
