Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/17504: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)

Washington, December 15, 1941—7 p.m.

5885. Your 6045, December 14, 6 p.m.85 and other telegrams under reference have been most helpful and as you know all these messages are immediately transmitted to the President.

Your 598686 in which you informed me it was not Eden’s intention to press for a declaration of war against Japan was received here the eleventh only a short time previous to an appointment which Litvinov had made with me.87 Before I had any chance to broach the situation, at the outset of our conversation the Ambassador advised me that his Government was “fighting on a huge scale against Germany and they would not be prepared to take part with us in an attack in the Far East which would result in fighting on two fronts by Russia.” I did, however, point out to Litvinov that air bases in the Far East were of urgent importance to us and likewise reported this necessity to you in my 5868 of December 13, midnight.85

In view of Eden’s statement in your 5986 of December 10, 8 p.m. referred to above, and paragraph 4 of the Military Attaché’s88 message referred to in your 6006 of December 11, 7 p.m.,85 it did not seem advisable to consider requesting that Eden, in the face of reported opinion of his own Ambassador in Russia, should urge contrary advices upon Stalin without a complete cooperative scheme having been worked out. Therefore, we thought it wise not to take advantage of Eden’s presence in Moscow but meanwhile to rely on the American Embassy in the Soviet Union to keep us in touch with the latest developments of opinion there. (This was the background of my 5868, December 13, midnight.)

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The President and I also await with interest any reports you may be able to furnish of Eden’s conversations with Stalin.

Please inform Foreign Office that we would appreciate it if it would ask Eden and the British Ambassador to maintain close contact with our Chargé d’Affaires in the Soviet Union.

Hull
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Dated December 10, Vol. iv, p. 1027.↩
  3. See the memorandum by Secretary of State Hull on his conversation of December 11, 1941, with the newly arrived Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United States, Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, Vol. iv, p. 742. See also the press release of December 11, 1941, Department of State Bulletin, December 13, 1941, p. 506.↩
  4. Not printed.↩
  5. Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Lee.↩
  6. Not printed.↩