800.515/1024b: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)33

1614. The Secretary of the Treasury has requested that I transmit the following message to you:

“I am deeply grateful to you for the help you gave us in arranging matters in Moscow. It was important to be able to inform the Congressional committees that experts of the United Nations, including the U.K., the U.S.S.R. and China, have agreed with us on a Joint Statement recommending the establishment of an International Monetary Fund.

Please deliver the following personal message to the People’s Commissar of Finance:

  • ‘1. I wish again to express my sincere thanks for your cooperation and for your friendly consideration of our views as expressed in my earlier messages to you.
  • 2. The Joint Statement was well received in the seven Congressional committees and particularly in those of the Senate. The press has given prominence to the Joint Statement.
  • 3. While the text of the Joint Statement will have reached some governments only recently, the principles have, of course, been discussed at considerable length by our and your technical staffs with the technical experts of some 30 countries. I have no doubt that the experts of these countries will find themselves thoroughly familiar with the principles of the Joint Statement.
  • 4. I have discussed with Secretary of State Hull the further steps that should now be taken. We are agreed that after informal consultation the following program should be followed: (a) A drafting committee of experts from 8 to 10 countries should be convened in Washington about May 10 to prepare an agenda and drafts to be considered by a conference. (b) The formal invitations to the conference would be sent about May 1. (c) The conference would hold its first plenary session about May 26.
  • The President has informed me that he will appoint me to head the United States delegation which will include some members of Congress. It seems to me that if you could come to the United States at the head of the Soviet delegation it would provide an excellent opportunity for us to become acquainted and to go over our common problems with our colleagues from the United Kingdom and China. I appreciate that it may be difficult to be away from Moscow throughout a conference, but it is my earnest hope that it will be possible for you to come.
  • 5. Meantime we expect to continue our discussions with the technical experts of the Soviet Government on both the International Fund and the International Bank’”

Please transmit the substance of the above message to Molotov and report to the Department and the Secretary of the Treasury as soon as possible concerning the reaction of Molotov and Commissar of Finance to the above message.

Hull
  1. Similar instructions containing a message for the British Chancellor of the Exchequer were sent to London in telegram 3288, April 25, 3 a.m.