761.62/613: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

67. A survey during the past week of the best informed and most objective diplomats in Moscow of all shades of opinion discloses virtual unanimity that Russian-German cooperation is steadily increasing. This development is regarded as the logical outcome of the reverses sustained by the Red Army in Finland and the failure of the German peace offensive. It is believed that the bewilderment of Stalin71 and Hitler72 at the position in which each now finds himself has accentuated in their minds the necessity of mutual support and that any mental reservations either or both may have made at the time they entered into their Pact73 have for the time being at least been discarded.

Steinhardt
  1. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks); member of the Politburo and Orgburo of the Party, etc.
  2. Adolf Hitler, Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich from January 30, 1933; Chief of State from August 2, 1934.
  3. Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Soviet Union signed at Moscow on August 23, 1939; for text, with secret additional protocol, see Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. vii, pp. 245–247.