800.51W89 U.S.S.R./51
Press Release Issued by the Department of State, May 7, 1934
Today an official, commenting for the State Department upon the report that the purchase of Russian Imperial bonds is being promoted, on the theory that they will be paid, in whole or in part, following any debt agreement arrived at between the Government of the United States and the Soviet Government, deprecated dealings in such bonds. He said that it is not yet known what will be the character of any agreement that may be made; and that it is entirely impossible to forecast [Page 91] what the agreement may or may not provide relative to any class of obligations or claims.
The attention of an official of the State Department was called to some criticism of the Attorney General’s opinion interpreting the Johnson Act, based upon the designation of the Russian indebtedness to our Government as the Kerensky debt. He said that while the Kerensky debt was mentioned in one of the questions propounded by the State Department to the Attorney General, the latter’s answer, which contains no specific reference to the Kerensky debt, is that the Soviet Government is responsible for the obligations incurred by prior Russian Governments. The fact is that some, but not all, of those obligations were incurred during the Kerensky premiership, and that they are at this moment in default. It was further emphatically stated that the Attorney General’s opinion leaves the Russian situation precisely as it was before the opinion was issued.