893.01 Outer Mongolia/40: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 22—5:55 p.m.]
501. Litvinov said to me today that in the immediate future the negotiations now in progress between “Manchukuo” and the “Mongolian Republic” would be broken off. He stated that he believed the Japanese would immediately provoke frontier incidents but added that the “Mongolian Republic” would continue to refuse to receive a representative of “Manchukuo” in Ulan Bator. I asked Litvinov if he feared that such frontier incidents might be a prelude to a Japanese drive against Outer Mongolia. He replied that he was convinced that the Japanese would be so busy in North China for a long time to come that they would be unable to make any serious move against the “Mongolian Republic”.