711.61/773: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 20—9:44 a.m.]
1579. For the Under Secretary. During the course of an interview with Lozovski this afternoon I took up with him the following matters: failure to grant permission for the Soviet wives of American citizens to leave the Soviet Union; failure to grant the Embassy free access to an imprisoned individual claiming American citizenship; failure to grant permission for the greater part of the Americans in the Lemberg14 area to depart for the United States; failure to provide on November 15 additional housing for the Embassy personnel as promised; failure to grant exit permits to three non-American employees of our Legation in Kaunas; failure to reply to my written request for permission to export a limited quantity of gasoline to our Legation in Stockholm; the conduct of the Moscow Customs authorities in having damaged a substantial part of a recent shipment of foodstuffs for the Embassy by tearing open containers and thrusting iron rods through each bag; refusal to afford most American citizens in transit through Moscow the necessary time within which to obtain requisite visas including Soviet exit visas; arrest without notice of a Soviet employee of the Embassy leaving his wife and 6 months old child to be fed and provided for by me personally; quadrupling the freight charge on our food shipments from Vladivostok so that the rate now exceeds 2,000 rubles per ton; refusal to grant a permit for the installation of a gasoline container within the Embassy premises although similar containers have been installed by the Soviet authorities in like premises; confiscation by Soviet frontier authorities of the $5.00 generally furnished by the Embassy to American citizens in process of repatriation and refusal to return the same to the Embassy insisting that application of refund be made by the individual concerned.
I asked Lozovski how he could reconcile the foregoing course of conduct with the concessions made to the Soviet Government in Washington. He replied that very few concessions had been thus far granted in Washington and then read to me the following list of matters in respect of which he said no action has as yet been taken: the sequestered gold and ships of the Baltic States, the continued recognition by the Department of the representatives of the Baltic States, the moral embargo and licenses for the export of machine tools. He stated that Colonel Maxwell had recently told Umansky that it [Page 406] would not be possible to grant export licenses in conjunction with machine tools and concluded with the observation that out of 297 machine tools for which $3,085,000 had long since been paid by the Soviet Government only one costing $7,090 has been released.
When Lozovsky concluded his recital of the concessions which the Soviet Government is still seeking in Washington I told him bluntly that I would oppose any further concessions in Washington until the Soviet Government had given tangible evidence of its appreciation of those already granted by removing the grievances I had cited. Lozovsky thereupon adopted a more reasonable attitude and assured me that permission would be granted forthwith for the export of a reasonable quantity of gasoline to our Legation at Stockholm, that he would give immediate instructions that I be permitted to interview the arrested individual claiming American citizenship, that he would also give instructions that American citizens in transit through Moscow be granted a reasonable period of time within which to perfect their papers, that he would issue instructions that all individuals in the Lemberg area in possession of American passports either now valid or which have expired within the past 3 years be granted exit visas and allowed to proceed to Moscow, that he would “look into” the matters of the Soviet wives of American citizens and the employees of our Legation in Kaunas, that he would “look into” the freight rates and also the matter of the arrested Embassy employee. He also said that he had informed himself with respect to the additional housing promised for the Embassy personnel on November 15 and that one apartment would be made available by the end of the current month and a second apartment “sometime in January”.
- Lvov, Lwow.↩