761.71/278: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 31—3:20 p.m.]
1098. It has been surmised that recent Soviet-Rumanian agitation based on alleged border incidents may have been designed either to call to the attention of the Axis Powers the fact that the Soviet Union has an interest in Balkan affairs or to serve as the customary buildup [of?] further territorial acquisitions by the Soviet Union which would bring it into physical contact with Bulgaria. If either of these speculative theses is correct it would appear that the joint German-Italian guarantee of the territorial integrity of what remains of Rumania is directed against the Soviet Union as the guarantee presumably would not preclude any consequential settlement of the southern Dobrudja question between Rumania and Bulgaria. No confirmation of any of the views suggested above is available at the moment.
There is also an unconfirmed rumor that Germany has intimated directly to the Soviet Government that Rumania lies within the German sphere of economic interest.99
- See the telegraphic instruction of August 31, 1940, from the German Foreign Minister to the German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1989–1941, p. 178.↩