861.24/441
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me in accordance with the agreement we had reached at the last general conference I had had with the Ambassador and his advisers.
The Ambassador appeared to be in a far more satisfied and conciliatory mood than I had ever seen him. He expressed the greatest appreciation of the “cooperation and courtesy” shown him by Colonel Maxwell and his associates, and by Mr. Philip Young12 and the latter’s associates, and expressed the opinion that while the amount of detailed work involved in the study of the machine tool license question was [Page 404] enormous and would necessarily take some time, he himself was entirely satisfied that every effort was being made to reach an equitable and expeditious solution.
Surprisingly, he referred only once, and that only casually, to what he had in previous conversations claimed was the small percentage of concessions made by this Government covering the export licenses for machine tools to the Soviet.
The Ambassador and I agreed in principle that the time had now come when a certain amount of drafting could be undertaken to cover agreements in principle already reached, but that of course, until an agreement had been reached on both sides with respect to all of the questions in which the two Governments were interested, there would be no formalizing of any specific agreements in principle already reached.
I took occasion to say to the Ambassador that I had been very glad to see from a telegram received this afternoon from Ambassador Steinhardt13 that the Soviet Government had agreed in principle to the establishment of an American consulate in Vladivostok after November 15. The Ambassador had not yet received this message.
I stated, however, that I regretted to see from the same telegram that Mr. Valkov, Chief of the American Section of the Soviet Foreign Office, had recently expressed the opinion to an official of the United States Embassy that there had been no improvement in Soviet-American relations in as much as the United States Government was doing nothing to improve such relations. I expressed the opinion that a remark of this kind was in the first place inaccurate, and in the second place, hardly calculated to improve the atmosphere between the two Governments.
The Ambassador turned a bright red and immediately said that the remark was completely unjustified and in no sense represented his own views, nor the views of Mr. Molotov nor of other high officials of the Soviet Foreign Office. He stated that both Mr. Molotov and himself were exceedingly appreciative of the friendly attitude which had recently been shown by this Government and were likewise under the impression that a far more friendly feeling between the two Governments had come about.
I asked the Ambassador whether he had informed his Government fully of all of the conversations which I had with him and he told me that they had been reported by him and that he had received specific approval from his Government of every agreement in principle which had been reached.