File No. 861.00/2084
The Ambassador in Russia ( Francis) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 21, 7.55 a.m.]
285. Vosnesenski, talkative chief of the Far Eastern Division of Soviet Foreign Office, who represented Soviet government at Summers’s funeral, called yesterday saying would be in Vologda five or six days. If his visit had any object it was to tell me that Chicherin had instructed him to say that notes demanding war vessels leave Russian ports3 were sent to please the Germans or perhaps by German orders and that Chicherin expected no reply or action thereon. Radek had told Lehrs4 the same and Poole had so wired me.
Have heard from two sources that a German colonel in uniform had recently met combination group in Moscow and promised that 10,000 Germans with German division organized from prisoners of [Page 564] war would overturn Bolshevik government in one week, if combination group would favor German alliance and compel Allied forces and Allied representatives to leave Russia and that combination group considering proposition and disposed to accept. …