Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/9055: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray)

Washington, March 19, 1941—8 p.m.

30. The Department has been informed by the American Ambassador at Moscow substantially as follows:35

1. On his return from Istanbul, the British Ambassador36 informed Vyshinski37 that the Turkish Government was seriously concerned lest the Soviet Union might attack Turkey in the event Turkey found it necessary to defend itself from aggression. On March 10 Vyshinski sent for the Turkish Ambassador38 and read to him a declaration stating in effect that the Soviet Government declared that the Turkish Government may rely on the non-aggression pact in existence between the Soviet Union and Turkey39 and may count on the full understanding and neutrality of the Soviet Union in the event that Turkey should find it necessary to take up arms in the defense of its territorial integrity.

Vyshinski agreed to put this declaration in the form of a note for delivery to the Turkish Ambassador. The note was delivered on March 11.

2. The Turkish reply to the Soviet note, which was delivered to Vyshinski on March 15, stated in effect, that the Turkish Government, in expressing its thanks for the sympathy and confidence of the Soviet Union, had taken notice of the Soviet assurances and desired to inform the Soviet Government that the same assurances would apply on the part of the Turkish Government, which will take the same attitude if the Soviet Union should be in the same situation.

3. The Turkish Ambassador is inquiring of Vyshinski as to the attitude of the Soviet Government regarding the giving of publicity to these two notes.40

Welles
  1. Telegram No. 504, March 15, 1941, from Moscow, not printed.↩
  2. Sir Stafford Cripps.↩
  3. Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.↩
  4. Ali Haydar Aktay.↩
  5. Treaty of Neutrality and Mutual Nonaggression signed at Paris on December 17, 1925; for text, see League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. clvii, p. 353. Protocol enlarging and prolonging the validity of this treaty, signed at Ankara on December 17, 1929, ibid., p. 360; further prolonged by Protocol signed at Ankara on October 30, 1931, ibid., p. 366; and prolonged until November 7, 1945, by Protocol signed at Ankara on November 7, 1935, ibid., vol. clxxix, p. 127.↩
  6. A communiqué summarizing these actions was published on March 25, 1941, in Moscow and Ankara.↩