800.01B11 Registration/10–2249: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Barbour ) to the Secretary of State

secret

2647. Appreciate information Deptel 779, October 21.1 While little further Embassy can do avoid reprisals possibility of which obvious particularly in light imminent trial Gubichev,2 security measures to minimize possibility Soviets framing pretext arrest US official personnel being redoubled. This connection from Embassy standpoint feel in national interest Department urge Justice expedite trial seek pecuniary penalties rather than jail sentences and make public such intentions preferably at once but latest at outset trial.

Embassy informing two American fur buyers and one tobacco buyer in Moscow whose status most nearly comparable Amtorg officers presumably renders them especially vulnerable.

Barbour
  1. Not printed; but see footnote 1, p. 764.
  2. Valentin Alexeyevich Gubichev, a citizen of the Soviet Union employed at the United Nations, and Judith Coplon, a citizen of the United States employed in the Department of Justice, had been arrested in New York City on March 4, 1949, and were to be tried there on the charge of conspiring to commit espionage. For documentation, see pp. 776 ff.