No. 523
Editorial Note
The new Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Georgiy Nikolayevich Zarubin, made an initial protocol visit on Secretary Acheson on September 18. Ambassador Zarubin, accompanied by Boris Ivanovich Karavayev, called to present copies of his credentials and to request an appointment with President Truman. The brief memorandum of conversation by Chief of Protocol John F. Simmons records the course of the meeting as follows:
“During the course of the conversation, which was of a general nature, the Ambassador said that his wife was not with him, giving no indication as to whether or when she might arrive. I told the Ambassador, before he departed, that I would be seeing him here from time to time.
“No matters of a political nature were discussed.” (Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation, lot 64 D 199)
Ambassador-designate Zarubin had called upon Ambassador Kennan in Moscow on September 4, before Kennan’s departure for the United States. Kennan’s very short telegraphic report on the meeting explained that the “conversation was entirely innocuous [Page 1048] and non-polit.” (Telegram 431 from Moscow, September 4; 123 Kennan, George F.)
Ambassador Zarubin called upon President Truman on September 25, and presented his credentials. For texts of the formal exchange of remarks on this occasion, see Department of State Bulletin, October 6, 1952, page 515. No other official record of the Ambassador’s call has been found. The accounts of the visit reported by the news media indicate that Ambassador Zarubin took the opportunity to deny the existence of a propaganda campaign against the United States.