January 22, 1938.
Dear Mr. President:
Just a note: It will cost you less time than a
visit.
 
 
One thing our country ought never to do: send its representatives in
Berlin to those Nurnberg shows.  First these meetings are the greatest
propaganda performances Europe has ever pulled off. Hundreds of
thousands of German soldiers and Hitler youth are paraded a week with
all kinds of army performances. They try to scare Europe.  The speeches
by Hitler, Goebbles and Rosenberg denounce and ridicule democracies.
This has been done in most offensive manner the last two years.  Never
before has
any country tried to compel diplomats to attend such
performances.
 
 
In August 1933 I looked into the matter and studied our own
performances. We invite diplomats to attend conventions but never
compel them to do so. Washington sent the French Minlster home when he
began his career by partisan and propaganda work in Charleston. Madison
asked English minister's recall when he attended a purely partisan
meeting in Boston (taking part himself) and Cleveland asked the
resignation of the British Ambassador in 1888 because he had written a
letter to a California friend asking him to vote for Cleveland. The
letter was published.  These facts seem to me to show plainly that I
should not attend a propaganda meeting in Nurnberg. I explained to von
Neurath and he agreed entirely. Representatives of all other democratic
countries took the same view and declined invitations. In 1936 coercive
pressure was put on smaller governments to send their representatives;
and several attended to hear denocracies compared with communism in
worst sense. The Minister from Holland refused to go and Hitler
indirectly caused his recall -- a very able Hollander now Minister in
London. In 1937 pressure was applied directly by Hitler to the
representatives of England, France and the United States.
 
 
 
 
The President
The White House
The
The President