Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940, General, Volume I

851.00B/225: Telegram

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

Moscow, February 8, 1940—11 a.m.
[Received 11:05 a.m.]

151. A Tass⁷² communiqué published in the press this morning states that on February 5 one hundred plain-clothes men of the French police raided the quarters of the Soviet Trade Delegation in Paris and after holding the employees under temporary detention made a thorough search of the premises and removed a quantity of papers. Similar raids are asserted to have been made on the office of Intourist⁷³ and on a former Soviet school in Paris. The communiqué states that following the failure of the police to evacuate the premises and return the seized documents on the demand of the Soviet Ambassador,⁷⁴ the latter on the same date lodged a protest with the French Government against the action of the police authorities and demanded the termination of the search and the return to the Trade Delegation of all of the seized documents.

Repeated to Paris.

Steinhardt

72. Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union; an official communications agency of the Soviet Government.
73. All-Union Corporation for Foreign Tourism in the Soviet Union; the official Soviet travel agency.
74. Yakov Zakharovich Surits (Suritz).