361.11/3648: Telegram
The Minister in Czechoslovakia ( Crane ) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received January 13—12:42 a.m.]
3. I find that the Foreign Office would gladly extend any assistance in repatriating Americans in Russia or help them in any other way which might be desired through the Czecho-Slovak Red Cross representative in Moscow. There is no officially accredited representative [Page 791] of Czechoslovakia in Russia but for your confidential information this Red Cross representative takes care of certain matters for this Government there and is in direct communication with the Foreign Office in Prague. The Foreign Office informs me there are several hundred Russians in Czechoslovakia many of whom are prisoners who have not been returned to Russia nor are they included in the numbers of prisoners of war [now] being repatriated to Russia. I am reasonably confident that the Czecho-Slovak Government would offer some of these in exchange for some Americans if any who are held in Moscow provided that [the United States Government] informally [indicated] to the Czecho-Slovak Government that there was no objection.