857H.01/41
The Acting Secretary of State to the French Ambassador ( Daeschner )
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of June 16, 1925, in which you state that you forwarded to your Government the proposed draft of agreement relative to the adhesion of Russia to the Spitzbergen treaty which was transmitted to you in the Department’s note of May 12 last.
You state that your Government believes that the clause “what is known as the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics” used in the American draft agreement may not be acceptable to all the Powers, and that it accordingly suggests that there be substituted in place thereof the clause “Federation designated by the name of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics”. You transmit with your note a draft of the proposed agreement which embodies the change suggested by you and inquire whether this draft meets with the approval of the Government of the United States.
My Government feels that it can not accept in its entirety the substitute clause proposed by you and suggests that the word “Federation” as used therein be replaced by the word “entity”. I accordingly have the honor to transmit to you herewith a redraft of the proposed agreement25 in which the clause “entity designated by the name of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics” is substituted in place of the clause “what is known as the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics” as used in the draft agreement transmitted with my note of May 12, 1925.
I trust that the agreement as now drafted will meet the objection set forth in your note of June 16 and prove acceptable to all the Contracting Parties.
Accept [etc.]
- Not printed.↩