411.61 Assignments/82a: Telegram

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

61. In connection with the suits being instituted by this Government to obtain possession of assets assigned to the United States by the Soviet Government,73 it is urgently desired to obtain all possible information with regard to the question whether the Soviet decrees confiscating all assets of dissolved Russian corporations were intended to transfer to the Soviet Government all assets of such corporations irrespective of the place where they were located, or only such assets as were located in Russia. Inasmuch as this question arises particularly in connection with the suit to recover assets in the United States of the Moscow Fire Insurance Company (a corporation of the Imperial Russian Government which was operating in the United [Page 346] States) this inquiry is made with special reference to the decree of December 8, 1918, which provided for the liquidation of private insurance companies and for the transfer to the Soviet Government of all assets of such corporations which remained after the liquidation.

For example, the Department desires you to make every effort to ascertain instances, if any, in which the Soviet Government (a) recovered, and (b) asserted title to, or attempted to obtain possession of, property or assets, located outside the territorial confines of the Soviet Union, of dissolved Russian corporations. Any statement bearing on these points made particularly at the time the decrees were issued or shortly thereafter by Soviet officials or legal authorities, would be of help. It is suggested that the matter be not taken up formally with the Foreign Office at the present time, since it is thought advisable to approach at first informally the competent Soviet authorities, and also, of course, other informed sources that may be available in Moscow.

Please report briefly by cable any information obtained. Full report should be forwarded promptly by mail.

Hull
  1. By the autumn of 1934 the United States had instituted suits in seven cases, and eight more cases were to be started after additional facts had been ascertained, ranging in amounts from $1,433.01 to $4,076,722.28 (411.61 Assignments/19½). These suits were for the assets assigned to the United States by the letter to President Roosevelt from the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, dated November 16, 1933. It was contemplated that such amounts as might be realized from this assignment, and which might be paid to the Government of the United States by the Soviet Government in final settlement of the debts and claims of the United States and its nationals, would constitute a fund for the satisfaction of the just claims of the United States and its nationals against the Soviet Government (461.11F44/11). The recoveries obtained from these assigned assets were deposited from time to time in a special account in the Treasury Department (411.61 Assignments/158). The eventual allocation and distribution of the realized gains would probably be contingent upon the enactment of appropriate legislation by Congress.