800.51W89 U.S.S.R./29: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union ( Bullitt ) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 9—7:18 a.m.]
44. Supplementing my number 43, April 8, 7 p.m. In the course of our conversation today Litvinov handed me the following:
“According to information received from the State Department during the sojourn of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs in Washington the funds at the disposal of the Russian Embassy at Washington on December 1, 1917, amounted to $46,176,721. According to the same source as a result of receipts after December 1, 1917 this sum reached $78,684,347 on January 1, 1920.
According to the memorandum of the former Russian Financial Attaché of January 10, 1921,16 communicated by Mr. Kelley to the Counselor of the Soviet Embassy in Washington17 the grand total of the inventory at the disposal of the former Russian Embassy on the first of January 1921 amounted to $171,792,395 which amount constituted the value of the property paid out of American credits and being under the control of the former Russian Embassy after the fall of the Russian Provisional Government.
[Page 82]The same memorandum shows that the total value of the propertysent to Siberia and to South Russia and to the Russian military agent in Japan amounted, since 1918 to $78,484,259.
The documents handed over to Mr. Skvirsky show that after the fall of the Provisional Government special regulations were introduced governing the shipments to Russian ports providing that the export licenses must be obtained from the War Trade Board. The shipments to Vladivostok had to be consigned to the representative of the War Trade Board at that port who was under instructions from Washington to turn over the goods to the actual addressees”.