704.60d61/5: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 8—6:15 p.m.]
1050. Department’s No. 270, December 7, 6 p.m. In the course of a general conversation with Potemkin this afternoon, I inquired whether the refusal by the Soviet Government to consent to the representation of Finland’s interests by Sweden was based on a general policy or whether the Soviet Government would permit any other government to take charge of Finnish interests or of the Finnish Legation building. Potemkin replied that the refusal of the Swedish request was based on a decision in principle with respect to “the Government [Page 1026] which has fled from Helsinki” adding that the Soviet Government, having recognized the Kuusinen government, could not permit the Helsinki Government to be represented in Moscow. He made it quite clear that his reply applied to the Finnish Legation building and any other Finnish Government property as well as to the representation of Finnish interests.
Since the departure of the personnel of the Finnish Legation last night, the gates of the Finnish Legation have been sealed by the Soviet authorities and the building is under guard.
Repeated to Helsinki [and?] Stockholm.
[Mr. Jesse H. Jones, Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, after consultation with the President, issued a press release on the evening of December 10, 1939 (for text, see New York Times, December 11, 1939), which announced that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of Washington, jointly, would make a loan of $10,000,000 to the Finnish-American Trading Corporation, New York, N. Y. This loan was to be guaranteed by the Finnish Government, and its purpose was to furnish dollar exchange to enable Finland to make purchases exclusively in the United States of “agricultural surpluses and other civilian supplies.”]