300.115(39) City of Flint/35: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt)
213. Your 800 and 801.77 I am relieved to receive at last news that the officers and crew of the City of Flint are safe, but disappointed that you have as yet not been able to report direct contact with them. If you have not succeeded in communicating with them directly by telephone or telegraph please take this matter up without delay with the Foreign Office and insist on right of free communication with them. Press reports as yet unconfirmed are to the effect that the Russian authorities have released the ship to the German prize crew. If this turns out to be true please renew our legal contentions and our demand that ship be turned over to American crew. Meanwhile what has become of the American crew? If they are still in Murmansk please send Ward or Bohlen there at once (you are authorized to charter plane if possible) (a) to take affidavits as to the true facts, notably regarding conditions of capture, seaworthiness of ship, et cetera, and (b) to give relief to crew. This is a right to which we are entitled by exchange of notes November 16, 1933,78 and on which we must insist. Why is it that Tass reports give details of what is happening hours before you are informed by the Foreign Office? Please call Potemkin’s attention to this lack of cooperation. The Government and public here cannot understand this attitude.