760d.61/508: Telegram
The Minister in Finland (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 29—3:20 p.m.]
368. My 362, today.84 Foreign Office has supplied me with French translation of note to Soviet Foreign Commissar which was telegraphed [Page 1005] to Finnish Minister at Moscow this afternoon for delivery presumably tonight.85 Translation follows.
“In reply to your note of the 28th instant I have the honor to inform you as follows:
It appears from my note of November 27 that Finland has not injured the territorial integrity of the U. S. S. R. In order to establish this fact in an irrefutable manner my Government proposes that the Frontier Commissioners of the two countries on the Isthmus of Karelia be instructed to proceed together to investigate the incident in question as provided in the convention regarding frontier commissioners concluded September 24, 1928. In my note I also pointed out that on the Finnish side of the border there have been placed chiefly ordinary frontier guard troops who cannot be a threat to the security of Leningrad. My Government thinks that a denunciation of the non-aggression pact was not justified; according to the protocol of 1934 this treaty shall remain in force and cannot be denounced until the end of the year 1945.
My Government desires to emphasize notably article 5 of the non-aggression treaty in which the two contracting parties declared that they will endeavor to resolve in a spirit of justice all differences of whatever nature or origin they may be which might arise between them and that they will have recourse for purposes of settlement exclusively to peaceful means. To this end the two contracting parties undertook to submit the differences which might arise between them and which may not have been settled by ordinary diplomatic procedures within a reasonable time to a conciliation procedure in a mixed conciliation commission. According to the said article the conciliation procedure shall be applied especially in case the difference should involve the question whether the mutual engagement of non-aggression has been violated or not.
Referring to the foregoing, my Government proposes that in conformity with article 5 of the treaty of non-aggression and the provisions of the Conciliation Convention attached to this treaty86 a conciliation commission be convoked without delay to examine the difference which has just arisen. Finland is disposed alternatively to submit the settlement of the difference to a neutral arbitration.
In order to furnish a solid proof of its sincere desire to reach an agreement with the Government of the U. S. S. R. and to refute the allegations of the Soviet Government according to which Finland adopted a hostile attitude towards the U. S. S. R. and would desire to threaten the security of Leningrad my Government is ready to reach an understanding with the Government of the U. S. S. R. on the subject of the displacement of the defense troops on the Isthmus of Karelia, with the exception of the frontier guard troops and customs, [Page 1006] at such distance from Leningrad that it cannot be claimed that they would threaten the security of that city.”
Repeated to Moscow.
- Not printed.↩
- The Minister in Finland reported in telegram No. 369, November 30, that the Secretary General of the Finnish Foreign Office had held a press conference in the early hours of the morning, at which he declared that this note had been telegraphed to Moscow about 5 p.m., on November 29, and had been received at the Finnish Legation at 9:30 p.m., just before the Minister was summoned to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (see infra).↩
- For text of the Conciliation Convention, signed on April 22, 1932, see league of Nations Treaty Series, vol. clvii, p. 401.↩