Long meeting took place last night with sub-committee referred to
in my telegram 505. [1] Discussion was with regard peace offensive
which it appeared certain would be attempted in the near future.

Method and character of such offensive was exhaustively considered
and nature and form of reply to be made was discussed without in
my view any satisfactory conclusions being arrived at. I urged
strongly that an appreciation of the political situation should be
prepared similar to a chiefs of staff's appreciation military
situation and it seems steps should be taken to draft the type of
reply it would be necessary to give under varying circumstances
visualised in appreciation, so that our answering message in reply
to any proposals would be of a character to convince the world
that our case was sound and enlist support of public opinion. This
was agreed to but whole position has been altered by Soviet-German
statement [2], and time I have been striving for past week to get
for consideration and consultation of our reply to any peace
offensive will not be available to us.

BRUCE