760i.6111/89: Telegram
The Minister in Estonia (Wiley) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:25 p.m.]
155. Commander-in-Chief returned yesterday from official visit to Moscow where he conferred with Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, et cetera. Since his return he has been closeted with the Government but as yet there are no official repercussions.
Madame Laidoner tells me that her husband was well received. She alleges that no demands were made on Estonia but that there were long and serious conversations at the Kremlin covering a number of subjects. She said that similar invitations to visit Moscow were being extended Latvia and Lithuania, and added that it would be easier for them than it had been for the General, since they would know what to expect.
During the General’s absence there was much curiosity, even anxiety, in Government circles over the course of events.
This morning a high official of the Foreign Office greatly relieved, told me that the General’s visit had proved to be “most reassuring”. No Soviet demands of any kind had been advanced, Molotov had gone out of his way to reiterate all the previous assurances given to Estonia and a favorable reception was given to certain requests made by the [Page 982] General (one of these had to do with Soviet supplies of arms and munitions to Estonia). The General, my informant stated, returned with the conviction that the Kremlin was “genuinely sorry that the Finnish Government had refused to trust the Soviet Union”. Molotov gave him a detailed account of the wide divergence of the attitudes adopted by Paasikivi and Tanner. The latter was blamed for the conflict.