Moscow Embassy Files, Lot F–96
The Chairman of the Soviet Council of Peopled Commissars (Stalin) to President Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister (Churchill)16
I have received your message of September 10.
1. The question concerning the Military-Political Commission may be considered basically as solved. The Assistant Chairman of the Soviet of People’s Commissars and Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs A. Ya. Vyshinski, who is known to you, has been appointed by us as the Soviet plenipotentiary representative. A. E. Bogomolov, the Ambassador of the USSR near the Allied Governments in London has been named his assistant. A group of responsible military and political experts and a small technical staff is attached to them.
I believe that the commencement of the work of the Military-Political Commission may be fixed toward the 25–30 of September. I do not object that the commission should commence its work in Algiers with the proviso that in the future it itself should establish the expediency of proceeding to Sicily or to some other place in Italy. I find the considerations of the Prime Minister regarding the functions of the commission as correct but I believe that after a certain time, taking into account the initial experience of the work of the commission, we may define more precisely these functions, not only in relation to Italy but also correspondingly in relation to other countries.
- This message was telegraphed by Mr. Molotov to Soviet Chargé Gromyko in Washington for transmission to the President. Mr. Molotov sent a copy of the message to Ambassador Standley on September 12, from which this translation was made.↩
- Other portions of this message are printed on p. 520 and in Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, p. 25.↩