660D.6131/42: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3 p.m.]
772. Embassy’s 585, May 26, 11 a.m.34 Pravda publishes a Tass communiqué this morning announcing the signature yesterday of a trade agreement and a payments agreement between the Soviet Union and Finland.35 The communiqué states that the trade agreement provides for the reciprocal application of the most-favored-nation principle and that a special appendix regulates the legal status of the Soviet trade mission in Finland; that the protocol to the trade agreement [Page 332] concerning trade turnover fixes the total value of this during the first year of its validity at 7,500,000 United States dollars for each party, or an aggregated turnover between the two countries of $15,000,000; that Finland will supply to the Soviet Union tugboats, lighters, electrical equipment, copper wire, leather, technical paper, butter, meat and other goods, and that the Soviet Union will supply Finland with wheat, rye, petroleum products, manganese ore, cotton, tobacco and other goods. The communiqué concludes that the agreements were signed by Mikoyan36 for the Soviet Union and by Kotilainen,37 Finnish Minister for Trade, and Paasikivi for Finland. Repeated to Helsinki.