411.61 Assignments/102: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Henderson) to the Secretary of State
207. Your 124, September 1, 6 p.m.
1. Reference [to] sections 1 and 4. During the course of a conversation with respect to other points of your telegram under reference Plotkin informed me that in his opinion the title to unassigned assets situated abroad of nationalized Russian corporations was still [Page 349] vested in the R.S.F.S.R. Insofar as he knew no law had been passed which provided for the transfer of such title from the R.S.F.S.R. to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, he did not believe that the decree of September 18, 1925, could be interpreted as providing for the transfer from the R.S.F.S.R, to the Soviet Union of the assets abroad of nationalized insurance companies. There could be no doubt, however, that the assets of a constituent republic were ipso facto the assets of the Soviet Union and that the Union Government alone had the right to exercise ownership over or to dispose of the property situated abroad of a constituent republic since the powers and functions of the governments of the constituent republics were fused beyond the Soviet frontier in those of the Union Government. The fact that the Union Government was the owner of assets situated abroad of the constituent republics was so generally accepted that he was sure that no court or Soviet writer on legal subjects had even considered, it necessary to touch upon this point. He added that even though in a strict sense the Union Government might not have acquired its claim to the assets in the United States of the insurance company as a “successor of prior governments in Russia” the Union Government, nevertheless, considered that it had had such a claim and that it had assigned such claims to the Government of the United States by virtue of Litvinov’s note of November 17 [16], 1933.
I said that although this matter might be clear to a Soviet court, and undoubtedly in time could be clarified to the satisfaction of the American court, it was so involved that unless the Department of Justice would be able to adduce some official Soviet statement in point it might be compelled before satisfying the American court to spend much time and effort in preparing argumentation on the subject. I suggested that in view of this circumstance and of the element of time involved it might be possible for Troyanovski to simplify the whole matter by writing a supplementary letter to his letter of July 21, 1936, which would be so worded as to leave no doubt as to the right of the United States Government to the assets in the United States of nationalized Russian companies. Plotkin said that his personal opinion was that a supplementary letter might well be a satisfactory solution to the problem. If, he said, the matter was causing concern to the Department of Justice the State Department [could?] suggest the wording of such a letter from Troyanovski who could submit the suggestion to the Foreign Office for approval.
[The portion here omitted was in partial answer to the questions concerning legal interpretations and meanings not printed in telegram No. 124, September 1, 1936, supra.]
- Telegram in two sections.↩