File No. 661.119/304b
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul at Archangel ( Cole )1
[From War Trade Board]:
19. Following press notice expressing the purposes of the Russian Bureau was issued Saturday [November 30]:
The War Trade Board of the United States Russian Bureau, Inc., is a company which has been organized by the War Trade Board at the direction of the President for the purpose of helping the Russians to help themselves in stabilizing the economic situation in Russia. It has a capital of $5,000,000 which has been issued and paid up in cash out of Government funds and the stock is owned in its entirety by the United States Government.
The company will engage in the business of exporting to Russia and Siberia, agricultural implements, shoes, clothing, and other commodities which the Russian population need, bringing back Russian and Siberian raw materials in return. The company thus is intended to aid in supplying the needs of the people of Russia, in encouraging Russian production and trade and assisting in the marketing of Russian products in America and their exchange for American goods. One of the chief objects which the company will have in view will be the encouragement of private capital to engage in trade in Russia and Siberia, as shipping becomes available for the purpose. Its policy will be to cooperate with, encourage and promote such trade with Russia as will assist in the rehabilitation of her economic life, and only to cover by its direct operations such portions of the field as can not at present be served readily by private capital.
The company has already begun the transaction of business by the dispatch of three vessels from the Pacific coast to Vladivostok carrying commodities which its representative in Siberia has designated as being most urgently needed there. By addressing the Russian Bureau, persons interested in Russian trade may receive more [Page 170] detailed information as to the commodities most needed by Russia and the commodities likely to be available for export from Russia. Additional vessels will from time to time be scheduled and shippers are urged to file applications for licenses to export to Russia such commodities as they know to be needed.
- The same, on the same date, to the diplomatic representatives in Japan (No. 150); Great Britain (No. 3257, for Sheldon, No. 1778); and Sweden (No. 1345, for Owen, No. 119); and to the Consul at Vladivostok (for Heid, No. 43).↩