740.0011 European War 1939/14291: Telegram
The Minister in Rumania (Gunther) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 23—7:30 a.m.]
768. The Acting Prime Minister opened his conversations with me last evening by a plea to the Western Democracies to find a formula of settlement with Germany in order to avert the danger to Europe of communism, Pan-Slavism, and Russian imperialism.
I countered by observing that I thought that Germany was attending to these matters. He seemed dubious and vouchsafed the opinion that there had been some serious miscalculations. He had to admit, however, that there was no present danger of Pan-Slavism.
As he referred again to the serious menace of Russian communism to Rumania I asked him if it had not occurred to him that probably the alliance with democratic and capitalistic Great Britain plus such influence as we might be in a position to exert would probably do more to sound the death knell of this waning ideology than anything else that could be accomplished by all the German armies together adding that it was conceivable that Russia might emerge from all this as a democratic state. He later insisted that Russia would always be imperialistic no matter what its government and a menace to Rumania [Page 326] and the Straits. As he implied that we were condoning and aiding a shamefaced aggressor I asked him how he himself would react if while stalked by a tiger the latter turned suddenly and attacked an elephant. I also quoted to him the well-known Rumanian proverb of “Make a brother of the devil until you get safely over the bridge.”
Repeated to Ankara.