Office of the Historian

124.60M/21: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston)

Washington, August 13, 1940—5 p.m.

436. Your 1001, August 11, 6 p.m. Unless you perceive some reason for not so doing, you are instructed to send a formal note to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs reading as follows:18

[Page 420]

“I have the honor to refer to Your Excellency’s note of August 11, 1940 in which it was requested that the missions and consular offices of the United States in Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn complete the liquidation of their affairs by August 25, 1940. My Government has instructed me to inform Your Excellency, without admitting the legality of the acts which have given rise to this request and at the same time reserving all rights in the premises, that it has the intention to close the missions and consular offices in question in the near future.

Accept, etc.”

Welles
  1. The note was sent to Molotov on August 14.↩