741.61/908: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:40 p.m.]
1568. For the President, the Secretary, and the Under Secretary. In the course of a conversation with the British Ambassador, I referred to the announcement yesterday morning by the British Broadcasting Corporation of the proposals submitted by the British Government to the Soviet Government [over] 3 weeks ago (reported in my 1393, October 23, 4 p.m.) and the failure of the latter to make any reply thereto, and inquired of him how this public announcement could be reconciled with the assurances given by him to the Soviet Government that the negotiations would be kept strictly confidential. The Ambassador stated that he had not been informed of the intention to publicize the British proposals and that he had immediately protested to his Foreign Office. He displayed deep resentment at the action taken in London. He received the explanation that the disclosure had been made by the Soviet Ambassador in London to Frederick Kuh, an American correspondent, and had found its way through this channel to the B. B. C. and he assumed that the failure of subsequent broadcasts to carry the same announcement resulted from action by the Foreign Office in response to his protest. He said that this was the second flagrant breach in London of assurances regarding nonpublicity given by him to high Soviet officials and that he now regarded his position as untenable, but that if he were to leave Moscow at this time, the Germans would boast that they had “driven the British Ambassador out of Moscow”. When I pointed out to him that the consequences of the publicity might be the opposite of what he feared, since the Soviet Government would unquestionably regard the publicity as having been the studied act of the British Government, and might well construe it to be designed to give notice to the Soviet Government of a stiffening of the British attitude, the Ambassador stated that unfortunately he had already sent a letter to Vyshinski “explaining” how the publicity had occurred.
In his anger at the position in which he has been placed, the Ambassador intimated that he was suspicious of “sabotage” in the British Foreign Office, saying that there were individuals in the British Government who were so hostile to the Soviet Union that they would prefer to risk the Empire rather than permit a rapprochement to take place. I pointed out that in the present instance the publicity appeared to have emanated from the Soviet Embassy and that the Foreign [Page 630] Office consequently could not be blamed. Cripps replied that even so, the Foreign Office had failed in its duty to supervise the announcements of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The Ambassador said that he assumed the Soviet Government would now find it necessary to make some form of public reply to the British proposals and that he feared the reply would be of an “unpleasant” nature. When I suggested that the Soviet Government might regard the B. B. C. announcement as tantamount to a withdrawal of the proposals to which no reply was necessary, the Ambassador, to my surprise, said that it was his intention “in a week or so” to insist upon a reply. He added that while he was considering withdrawing his proposals for a trade agreement, he had never regarded a political understanding as a prerequisite for the conclusion of a trade agreement.
The Ambassador said he was entirely uninformed as to what has taken place at the meeting between Molotov and Hitler, but that he was under the impression that some political understanding had been arrived at. When I suggested to him that any understanding arrived at in Berlin might have been more economic than political, he intimated that he attached less importance to Soviet economic assistance to Germany than to a political agreement in view of the efficacy of the British blockade. On the other hand, he told me that British shipping losses had recently averaged 200,000 tons per week which he regarded as extremely grave.