Saturday, 12 February
Dull
In the morning I went with Attaché Li to the diplomatic shop. There was nothing worth buying. Then we went to the second-hand book shop. I bought Connoisseur 1902-1912, which is leather-bound. It is quite nice.
The American Ambassador Harriman invited me to lunch. He talked about recent diplomatic development. He said the Polish Incident is extremely complicated, but that it has not yet affected the attitude of the American Government towards the Soviet Union. But if the Soviet Union does anything that will embarrass Americans, then he cannot say what will happen. He personally thought that the Soviet Union hasn’t changed its cooperative policy with Britain and the United States. With regard to the Finnish question, he also knew about Soviet vengeance towards the Finnish. With regard to change in the Soviet diplomatic system, he did not know Britain had not allowed the request from the Soviet Union. Regarding recognition of the Baltic States, he also thought that it was one of the diplomatic difficulties. After lunch I watched the movie “To Brittany”. It was quite good.
In the evening a Turkish broadcast refuted The Times of London accusation that Turkey did not fulfil its duty towards the Allies. Turkey stressed that its neutrality facilitated the Allies great convenience. At the most dangerous time when Britain fought alone, Turkey was not threatened by German coercion and its relationship with Britain did not waver. As for the Allies’ duty, when Italy joined the war and invaded France, on the one hand France dispatched people to Turkey asking the Turkish Government to carry out its duty as a member of the Allies that it should join the war, but at the same time the French Government dispatched people for peace talks with Germany, and gradually moved towards joining Germany. As for Britain providing Turkey with armaments, the amount was not up to the quantities Britain would supply. In this way it is impossible for Turkey to fulfills its duty on his own and make meaningless sacrifice. Its words are not unreasonable but during this time of quarreling, the neutrality of the small states is bestowed by the big countries. There is no such justice to “respect for neutrality in the 20th century”. This time Turkey is able to keep completely neutral and free from the war merely as the luck of geography and circumstances, but not through big countries respecting international law.
The British broadcast also said the British Government has banned the printing of the Polish Brodouoyer Toueku in London. It said that the newspaper’s editorials encouraged divisions between the Allies, and the newspaper had been warned repeatedly but to no avail. This is good for British-Soviet relations, but as a matter of fact Britain is very unwise in that it has previously permitted various Polish anti-Soviet propaganda and activities in Britain.