761.67/355: Telegram
The Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 25—6:50 p.m.]
446. 1. Secretary General of Foreign Office informs me that although convinced that Russian submarine was responsible for sinking reported in my 434, November 15,3 Turkish Government has not yet protested to Soviet Government and will probably postpone doing so pending investigation of sinking of small Turkish ship Yénic in Bulgarian waters November 18—presumably by same means.
2. He expressed with unwonted heat his conviction that although Russia is, under circumstances, making common cause with such democracies as United States and Great Britain she can never be expected to share their political concepts or rid herself of innate political viciousness: in her recent relations with Turkey she has shown herself utterly untrustworthy: while protesting friendship and desire for better understanding she is sinking Turkish ships, agitating among Americans [Armenians] and Kurds in Turkey, encouraging formation of an Armenian-Kurdish state in Azerbaijan, and sending into Turkey (over Caucasus frontier and in Black Sea) various groups which have been captured with radio transmitters and with instructions for espionage; among such incidents was one involving firing with cannon from boat that had come to pick up spy previously landed on coast.
3. I understand that in conversation with an allied colleague Soviet Ambassador, who is greatly disturbed by intensity of Turkish reaction [Page 335] against Russia and is groping for some means of détente has flatly denied that his Government has had any part in such incidents and claimed that they are work of Axis agents seeking to foster Turkish distrust and hatred of Russia.
Repeated to Kuibyshev.
- Not printed.↩