761.71/277: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 30—10:33 a.m.]
1088. Embassy’s 1080, August 28.90 Pravda this morning publishes the following Foreign Office statement.
“On August 19, 1940, Comrade V. G. Dekanozov, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, handed to Mr. Gafencu, the Rumanian Minister in Moscow, a note of protest against the provocative actions of Rumanian army units on the Soviet-Rumanian frontier. Furthermore the note pointed out the inadmissibility of a repetition of the volleys fired at Soviet border guard detachments by Rumanian army units, to which in individual cases the Soviet border guards had been compelled to open fire in return.
On August 29, Comrade V. G. Dekanozov, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, summoned Mr. Gafencu, the Rumanian Minister, and again handed him a note of protest both against new hostile acts by the Rumanian border guards and army units on the Soviet frontier, and also against a number of instances of violation of the Soviet frontier by Rumanian military airplanes. The Soviet note of August 29 stated that actually there had been no Soviet casualties [Page 500] but that if there should be casualties the matter would assume a serious character. The Soviet Government charged the Rumanian Government with full responsibility for possible consequences of the acts mentioned on the part of the Rumanian army units and military airplanes.
At the time of this conversation, Mr. Gafencu handed to Comrade Dekanozov a note of August 26 of the Rumanian Government in reply to the note of August 19 of the Soviet Government. In its note of reply the Rumanian Government, contesting the statements contained in the Soviet note as regards firing from the Rumanian side, declared that it had issued repeated instructions to the Rumanian border guards to avoid in every way any incidents which could disturb the good neighborly relations between the two countries. Furthermore Mr. Gafencu stated that cases of firing upon Rumanian border guard detachments and of flights of airplanes across the border from the Soviet side had allegedly taken place.
Comrade Dekanozov declared that these reports would be verified, and emphasized the necessity that a speedy and satisfactory reply be received by the Soviet Government to its renewed protest of that date, inasmuch as, despite the note of August 26 of the Rumanian Government, violations of the Soviet border by Rumanian army units had continued to occur up until that time.”
Repeated to Bucharest.
- Not printed.↩