Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State of a Meeting With the President, Thursday, September 14, 1950 2
Protest by Russians and Poles on Unloading of “Batory”
I informed the President of the implied threat to interrupt supplies to our Embassy in Moscow which appears to be arising out of our handling of the Batory.3 The President expressed his thorough dissatisfaction with the action of the longshoremen and indicated he saw no real point to the harassment of the Batory as practiced by our Immigration and Justice officials. He authorized me to discuss this matter with the Attorney General to see if we could not work out some improvement.4
- Lot 53 D 444 is a comprehensive chronological collection of the Secretary of State’s memoranda and memoranda of conversation for the years 1947–1953, as maintained by the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State.↩
- The Secretary of State (or in his absence, the Acting Secretary) met with the President several times each week to discuss important foreign policy problems. This memorandum covers one of several topics taken up on September 14.↩
- Vladimir Ivanovich Bazykin, Counselor of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, called at the Department of State on September 13 to complain that the Polish liner Batory, during its most recent visit to New York, had not been permitted to unload 24 cases addressed to the Soviet Embassy. Bazykin referred to the “noninterference” by Soviet authorities with shipments destined for the American Embassy in Moscow, and he stated that the Soviet Embassy insisted that the Department of State take steps to ensure that in the future all official shipments addressed to the Embassy in Washington would not be interfered with (memorandum of conversation by Reinhardt, September 13, 1950: 601.6111/9–1350).↩
- Regarding the Acting Secretary’s meetings with Attorney General McGrath, see footnote 6, supra.↩