With reference to your Secret Minute, 313/8,¹ sending me copies of Reports from the Minister to Italy, I have to report that as I met X² yesterday, I sounded him about the suggestion that certain Americans who were high in Government circles now believed war to be inevitable.

2. He said straightaway that he did not think there was much ground for that suggestion. If the Marshall Plan was adopted and put into practical working soon, then beyond any doubt Europe would be saved. His difficulty, however, was to know exactly what the Americans meant to do. They were still rather an immature people - one day they would be willing to send Marines to Greece, and the next day they would decline. The Russians were also immature but they had a definite political philosophy behind them with a code of action which was both consistent and uninterrupted. For the moment X could think of little else but the final decision in Washington; the lengthy debates there and the pressure from certain American political groups, in view of the approaching Elections, made it extremely difficult for all concerned in Europe. Only that day he had been saying to some of his colleagues, that he felt personally he was in the position of a General Secretary of a Trade Union ordering a big Strike without knowing whether the Treasurer would find the money for Strike Pay.
3. He had secret information about Molotov's talks with his Soviet colleagues when in London recently. The Soviet Leaders are fully confident that they can get all they want by diplomatic pressure and the directions from Moscow to their people abroad are that they must unceasingly pursue this policy, saying that by such means the Cominform will win without the firing of a single shot.
4. It would be impossible for him to overstate the urgency of a settlement in Washington. He was apprehensive about the near future unless the American discussions reached finality at the very latest by the first or second week in March. Such a date was of vital importance because their information was that well organised preparations were now being made for large scale strikes all over America next April. The same kind of trouble he knew was now being actively planned in Western Germany also for April. This information he impressed upon me as of the most confidential character and he was unwilling that it should go to anyone except An Taoiseach. All last week he and certain of his colleagues had been meeting so as to be ready if these strikes should take place.
5. Mr. Marshall, Mr. Douglas, American Ambassador in London, and General Eisenhower were first class men of undoubted integrity and of complete goodwill towards Western Europe. He was most anxious to see the American Ambassador on his return to this country in order to find out what exactly was the position about the Marshall Plan.
6. What did he think the position would be, I asked, if, as had happened before in World History, this expected aid proved to be 'too little and too late'? He said it was extremely difficult to say but although the European situation would then be desperate beyond words, he doubted whether, even in those circumstances, there would be an immediate drive for war. The world might, nevertheless, easily fall into war through some comparatively small and unforeseeable incident - he emphasised the word 'fall' saying that by it he meant 'by accident rather than by design'.
7. The Western Union proposal had been deferred as long as possible but he felt reasonably happy about its prospects. He was not troubled over the attitude of the Scandinavian countries; they were getting their coal from Poland but he thought they would much prefer to co-operate with the Western Powers as soon as their national economy would permit - that would be the moment the Marshall Plan reached fruition. (In this connexion I spoke of the Poles as being friendly and helpful wherever they were free from Soviet domination). If the Marshall aid could be put into full operation, he thought the British Government could make considerable improvements in their trading relations, not only with the Scandinavian countries, but also with us as well.
8. A very friendly reference on his part to An Taoiseach in the present position of Irish affairs concluded the conversation.