761.6211/156: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 31—10:49 a.m.]
968. My 863, August 22, 8 p.m. In view of the accounts and comments appearing in the German press yesterday regarding the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact and the implications therein as to a possible extension of that pact to a larger cooperation between the two countries (see my 962, and 956, August 3022) an inquiry was made at the Soviet Embassy here with a view to soliciting further views as to the possible significance of the foregoing accounts and comments.
In informal conversation a member of the Soviet Embassy stated categorically that the reports that the Non-aggression Pact with Germany was accompanied by a secret agreement for common military action against Poland looking toward the partition of that country were malicious inventions; that it was to the interest of Soviet Russia to maintain Poland as well as the Baltic countries as buffer states and that the purpose of the Non-aggression Pact was for peace and not in support of or complicity in any German imperialistic designs. At [Page 346] the same time the Secretary of the Embassy showed considerable resentment against Poland on the basis that it had refused Russian guarantees of territorial integrity and a mutual assistance pact owing to its fear that Soviet troops once on Polish soil would constitute a nucleus for subversive activities against the Polish Government and the social and economic order of the country.
While there is no information available which would indicate that the pact in its present stage is directed against the status of Poland as an independent state, it should be observed that there is no reason to believe that the individual members of the Soviet Embassy here are fully informed as to the actual aims envisaged or that judging from the misleading information alleged to have been supplied by that Embassy to other embassies here during the negotiation of the Soviet-German pact, special credence should be given to the views emanating therefrom. Although it is impossible to evaluate at present the intimations which have lately appeared in the German press as to a larger significance of the pact, the suggestion has been put forth that this renewed emphasis springs more from a desire to impress the public both in Germany and abroad as to the intention of this pact than to any actual achievement in extending its purpose in support of Nazi aims. Future developments may indicate the extent and the limitation of this pact but it should be observed that the orientation and development of that pact does not depend upon Germany alone and there is no reason to believe that in this instance the Kremlin will depart from its habitual practice of limiting and extending its international commitments solely on the basis of its evaluation of the means best adapted to safeguard its own interests.
- Neither printed.↩