740.0011 European War 1939/6941: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:20 p.m.]
1644. The Turkish Ambassador told me this evening that he was reliably informed that in the interview between King Boris and Hitler, the former had told the latter that inasmuch as the Soviet Union was not a party to the Tripartite Pact, Bulgaria could not risk joining it and that the visit of Sobolev to Sofia50 had been primarily for the purpose of expressing the approval of the Soviet Government of the position taken by Bulgaria.
The Ambassador also told me that he had recently had an interview with Vyshinski in the course of which, under instructions from his Government, he had put to him the three following questions: (1) regarding the attitude of the Soviet Union towards the Greco-Italian war; (2) regarding the attitude of the Soviet Union towards the general situation in the Balkans; and (3) regarding the attitude of the Soviet Union towards the entry of Bulgaria into the war in any degree or in any way.
He said that after a delay of 2 days Vyshinski had sent for him and had said that he had been authorized by his Government to make the following replies: (1) the attitude of the Soviet Union towards the Greco-Italian war would be governed primarily by the military developments in that theater; (2) the attitude of the Soviet Union towards general conditions in the Balkans was strictly that of “just observer of developments”; and (3) insofar as concerned Bulgaria’s entry into the war in any degree or in any way that was a matter for the Bulgarian Government to decide.
Vyshinski then asked the Ambassador for a statement of the Turkish position to which the Ambassador replied that he was authorized by his Government to state that the Turkish Government intended to preserve its present status of “nonbelligerency” unless its frontiers were violated or Bulgaria attacked Greece, in which event Turkey would immediately go to the assistance of Greece or in the event that [Page 533] Syria was attacked, in which event Turkish armed forces would enter that country.
The Ambassador said that in a subsequent conversation with Dekanosov he had called his attention to the rumors current to the effect that in the course of the conversations between Molotov and Hitler an understanding had been reached with respect to a partitioning of the Balkans, with the Soviet Union obtaining the Straits and territorial concessions in Iran and eastern Turkey and asked him if there was any truth to these rumors. Dekanosov replied that no agreement had been entered into in Berlin and emphatically denied the truth of the rumors referred to by the Ambassador, stating that the conversations in Berlin had dealt with an enlargement of the cooperation between the Soviet Union and Germany, provided for under the terms of the non-aggression pact and the economic agreements51 and that conversations with this object in view would now be continued through the regular diplomatic channels.
- For subsequent disclosures of the nature of this visit, which occurred on November 25, 1940, see telegrams Nos. 188, December 18, 6 p.m., and 189, December 18, 7 p.m., from the Minister in Bulgaria, p. 537; see also telegram No. 1720, December 13, 2 p.m., from the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, p. 535.↩
- A German-Soviet trade agreement was signed on August 19, 1939; its provsions are described in a German Foreign Office memorandum of August 29, 1939, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941, p. 83. A German-Soviet commercial agreement was signed on February 11, 1940; its provisions are described in a German Foreign Office memorandum of February 26, 1940, ibid., p. 131.↩