800.51W89 U.S.S.R./69: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:35 p.m.]
140. Your 119, June 12, 6 p.m. I believe that the discouraging of private credits in the United States may prove to be an effective weapon. In this connection Mr. Orcutt, representative of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, who has just completed a thorough investigation of the Soviet market, informs me, I believe reliably, that the Narkomindel25a is under great pressure from the industrial purchasing agencies of the Soviet Union to come to immediate agreement with us, as much machinery is needed which can be obtained only in the United States. For example Tekhnoprom Import25b has discussed with him the purchase of five hundred linotype machines at a total price of $2,500,000 to be paid for on 21–month credit terms. Tekhnoprom Import informed him that the Soviet Government had directed that no large orders should be placed in America until the present diplomatic negotiations had been concluded, but that the need for linotype machines was so great that he would receive small orders in spite of this general prohibition.
I believe that refusal to open consulates would be ineffective as pressure and I am certain that refusal to go ahead with the construction of the new Embassy would be directly contrary to our national interests. See my 139, June 14, 1 p.m.26
I have read with interest Mr. Ralph Hill’s memorandum on Soviet propaganda transmitted to me under date of May 23.27 I concur in the implication of its last sentence. The acts cited seem not to warrant further consideration at this moment.
In the handling of relations between countries so widely separated in ideas, structure and distance as the United States and the Soviet Union, it seems to me of vital importance that minor vexations should not be permitted to produce an atmosphere in which a mutually beneficial cooperation cannot thrive. In Moscow we are subjected to a [Page 107] hundred such irritations daily and it is, I feel, our duty to endure them with equanimity and to preserve our wrath for major issues. We cannot forget that at any time the lines of major policy of the United States and the Soviet Union may run parallel.