124.61/123
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Davies) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 21.]
Sir: I beg leave to report that on March 3, I had an extended conference with People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Litvinov, at the Foreign Office.
At this meeting I first presented congratulations upon the successful achievement of the Papanin scientific expedition to the North Pole and the rescue of these courageous scientific Russian men. I also advised him of the fact that the President and Secretary of State had both desired that I should return from my visit to the United States to the Soviet Union prior to my transfer to Belgium, in order that I might finish my reports and work here and then take proper leave of the authorities here, upon my official departure. Commissar Litvinov expressed thanks for the congratulations upon the achievement of the North Pole scientists. He was also gracious in his expressions of regret that I was being transferred. He asked particularly after President Roosevelt’s health, expressed gratification that he was so well, and again expressed great admiration for the work he was doing for the democratic ideals and peace. He also expressed great admiration for the trade treaty program which Secretary Hull is projecting with such “ability and distinction”.
He then stated that he had been much perturbed by reports from Ambassador Troyanovski to the effect that the Department of State had considered that the diplomatic mission here had not received proper consideration from this Government. He stated that he had been so much concerned that he had himself studied the memorandum which Ambassador Troyanovski had received at the Department;22 that after careful study of the memorandum he had reached the conclusion that with the exception of the debt question,23 practically all the other matters were either trivial or matters that had already been disposed of to the satisfaction of the United States. He stated that he felt particularly aggrieved by the attitude which this situation disclosed, as it seemed a poor return for the exceptional manner in which the Soviet Union and his department had gone out of its way to show the highest consideration for the United States. He stated that the fact was, as he had stated to me, (and which he assumed I had transmitted to the Department) that the Soviet Union had done and was disposed to do more for the United States than for any other [Page 530] country. In elaborating upon the point he called attention to the fact that more adverse publicity and acclaim had been given to the detention of one American citizen (apparently Mrs. Rubens),24 who was obviously tainted with crime, than had been given to hundreds of German and prisoners of other nationalities who had been detained and who, after months of imprisonment, still had not been interviewed by the diplomatic representatives of their country. He stated that he could not understand why this publicity should have been projected or why the matter should have been handled in the way it was so as to have induced this publicity in view of the fact that within the last six months he had in two cases secured immediate relief in similar cases upon my taking the matters up with him in an informal manner. He emphasized that in the Hrinkevich case (my telegram No. 291, November 11, 1937, 9 p.m.25) he had immediately complied with my request that Hrinkevich, who was under arrest, should be permitted to be interviewed by the American diplomatic officers. He also referred to the Petty case (Embassy’s despatch No. 796, December 3, 193726) and recalled that here too, under a serious situation, where Petty was not granted a visa because he was needed as a material witness, but was still permitted to depart, upon my representation, despite the fact that Petty had made a serious physical assault upon a Soviet official here. In view of these two recent instances, where all that was necessary to be done was to call the matter informally to his attention, that they should receive prompt action, he found it difficult to account for what had happened. He called attention to the exceptional conditions that confronted his Government and that it felt compelled to arrest hundreds of Germans and other nationals, and to deny them access to their diplomatic officials, and indicated the exceptional contrast this afforded to the attitude toward the United States, which had been demonstrated within recent months. He stated that in view of these facts he regretted matters should have developed as they had. To this I rejoined along the lines of the general situation, so clearly and ably outlined in Secretary Hull’s memorandum and also on the specific lines of Mr. Henderson’s reply to Mr. Weinberg, set forth in the Embassy’s despatch No. 958, February 18, 1938.27
Commissar Litvinov then changed the subject by saying: “Well let’s discuss not trivial matters but larger issues,” and he inquired as to the effect of the President’s speech at Chicago28 and the status of [Page 531] public opinion in the United States with reference to the policy of isolation. In reply to his question, I stated it to be my opinion, that events in England in the parliamentary Eden–Chamberlain crisis had, at least for the present, intensified the isolationist feeling in the United States. With reference to the Japanese situation he gave me the following very interesting information, which I thought of sufficient importance to transmit by cable forthwith.
He described a meeting last month in Geneva between Delbos, Wellington Koo, Eden, and himself, regarding the Japanese situation. He said the discussion concerned possible renewal of efforts along the lines of the Brussels Conference;29 Delbos would assume no definite stand without England’s backing because of fear for Indo-China; that Eden would not take a definite stand without the express assurance of parallel action by the United States; that the situation was left with Eden with the understanding that he would pursue the matter with Washington; that it was recognized that the United States would take part in no alliance, but the conferees hoped that something real might be accomplished through parallel action; that what really was being considered was the imposing of sanctions which would prevent Japanese banks from selling securities in enterprises in Manchukuo and China to nationals of European countries and, secondly, the possibility of sanctions being imposed upon supplies, particularly oil. Litvinov seemed pessimistic regarding the outcome of any such plan and pointed out that to place an embargo on oil would require not only action by the United States but also by Holland. He felt that Holland would most certainly not agree to participate unless she received guaranties of military and naval defense by other powers.
I gathered from Litvinov that the Soviet attitude was similar to the British and French, in as much as neither of them would take action without assurances of support from the other.
Regarding the general European situation, Litvinov expressed the opinion that Hitler and Mussolini had Chamberlain on the spot; that Chamberlain would be required to make good before his public by effecting some sort of arrangement; that the dictators would either drive a hard bargain with him so as to make it impossible, or Chamberlain would be required to make a paper peace that would really amount to nothing more than a sham for home consumption.
Respectfully yours,
- See memorandum of January 13, 1938, by the Secretary of State, p. 624.↩
- For failure of the negotiations for the settlement of claims and credits, see pp. 166 ff.↩
- For correspondence concerning the arrest and detention of American citizens by Soviet authorities, see pp. 491 ff.↩
- Ante, p. 495.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Post, p. 633.↩
- For text of the speech by President Roosevelt in Chicago on October 5, 1937, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 379.↩
- For invitation of the Belgian Government and other documents relating to the Conference of Brussels, see Department of State Conference Series 37: The Conference of Brussels, November 3–24, 1931, Convened in Virtue of Article 7 of the Nine–Power Treaty of Washington of 1922 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1938); also see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, pp. 400–422, passim. ↩