611.6131/381a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Henderson )

80. Department desires that you seek at once an interview with the Commissar for Foreign Affairs,51 or with the Acting Commissar52 in the event that Litvinoff has not returned or will not return within the next few days, and state that you have been instructed by your Government to ascertain for its information in connection with its consideration of the question of the extension of the term of the agreement embodied in the notes exchanged between Ambassador Bullitt and Mr. Litvinoff on July 13, 1935, (1) the total value of the American goods purchased in the United States by the Soviet Government since July 13, 1935, and the probable amount of the purchases that will be made in the remainder of the 12–month period, and (2) the intentions of the Soviet Government with regard to the purchase of American goods during the ensuing 12-month period.

For your information and guidance. With respect to the information requested under (2), it would be of great help to the Department to know whether the plans of the Soviet Government with regard to purchases in the United States in the period subsequent to July 13, 1936, provide for at least the maintenance of the substantially increased amount of Soviet purchases of American goods which has taken place since July 13, 1935. For reasons indicated in the Department’s telegram No. 71 of March 27, 1935,53 it would be difficult for this Government to justify the continued generalization of tariff concessions to the Soviet Union if such action on its part did not lead at [Page 326] least to the continuance of the substantially increased exports of American goods to the Soviet Union.

Telegraph promptly the results of your conversation.

Hull
  1. Maxim Maximovich Litvinov.
  2. Nikolay Nikolayevich Krestinsky.
  3. Ante, p. 192.