611.6131/474: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Davies) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 4—10:05 a.m.]
209. 1. Notes exchanged at noon today. With respect to wording and punctuation they are precisely like the notes set forth in my telegram 202, July 31, 5 p.m., altered in accordance with the Department’s 120, August 1, 8 p.m., and 121, August 3, 1 p.m.,83 and with the following additional alteration: Litvinov in signing his [Page 440] notes personally insisted on changing the last “in” in his note of August 5 to “to”, so that the phrase now reads “to the amount of at least $40,000,000.”
2. Litvinov signed “M. Litvinoff” without using any title.
[The text of the agreement effected by exchange of notes signed August 4, 1937, approved by the Soviet of People’s Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on August 6, 1937, proclaimed by the President of the United States on August 6, 1937, and effective on August 6, 1937, is printed in Department of State Executive Agreement Series No. 105, or 50 Stat 1619. For text of press release issued by the Department August 6, 1937, see Department of State, Press Releases, August 7, 1937, page 73.
By Treasury Decision No. 49118 of August 9, 1937 (2 Fed. Reg. 1386), the importation of coal from the Soviet Union was exempted from the tax on the import of coal by virtue of the most-favored-nation provision in this commercial agreement signed August 4, 1937.]
- Latter not printed.↩