740.0011 European War 1939/3423: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 31—10:35 p.m.]
604. Molotov received me tonight at 10 p.m. I informed him almost verbatim of the reason for my visit as set forth in your telegraphic instruction No. 292, May 29.19 Molotov stated that the Soviet Government is taking no unusual military measures; that such measures as it is taking are of a much less extensive nature than military measures being taken by Rumania; and especially less extensive than those being taken by the United States as to which the Soviet Government is unable to determine whether they are designed for peace or war.
Mr. Molotov (who had interrupted me before I had finished stating my errand to inquire if that was all I had come to see him about) then launched upon an extended and violent complaint against the treatment being accorded the Soviet Government by the Government of the United States which he described as unfriendly and intolerable. As he referred to the cancellation of orders placed with American firms by the Soviet Union I interjected that I had been informed by my Government of the [conversation] to which I assumed he was referring and that as Mr. Umanski had been informed already, orders placed for other governments were being requisitioned by us and [Page 305] that such a requisitioning did not constitute any act of discrimination against the Soviet Government.
Molotov replied that he was familiar with our attempts to explain our actions and to present them as being nondiscriminatory but that he did not regard our explanations as being substantiated by proofs. I inquired whether he therefore rejected the explanation I had offered and he stated that he did. He then resumed his criticism of our attitude toward the Soviet Union making such statements, for example, as that the United States had no mandate to revise the normal methods of intercourse between states and describing our action as unlawful and intolerable, and one for which we must assume full responsibility and which could bring no good to the United States. The foregoing subject was pursued by him at great length. But in general his remarks were a repetition in various forms of what I have just set down. He requested me to inform my Government of the views of the Soviet Government in this respect and I assured him that I would immediately do so.
At the conclusion of our interview I stated to Molotov that he had spoken to me with extreme frankness on a subject which interested him but that I did not feel that I had obtained the information I had requested from him with respect to Rumania. Mr. Molotov somewhat curtly replied that he had said all on that subject that he had to say.