861.24/771

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Henderson)

During a conversation which I had late this afternoon with the Soviet Ambassador, he told me that this morning he had accompanied Mr. Lukashev89 and Mr. Seldiakov90 to the office of the President’s Liaison Committee and had there handed to Mr. Buckley91 a complete list of machine tools which the Soviet Government desired to purchase in the United States during the coming year. He said that they had given this list to Mr. Buckley in accordance with a suggestion made by him during the conversation of a week or so ago in Mr. Atherton’s office. He added that the fate of American-Soviet trade depended on decisions made by Mr. Buckley’s office with respect to this list, and said he hoped that the State Department would do what it could to impress upon the President’s Liaison Committee the importance of the matter which it was handling.92

L[oy] W. H[enderson]
  1. Konstantin I. Lukashëv, chairman of the board and president of the Amtorg Trading Corporation.
  2. Pavel Sergeyevich Seldyakov, vice president of the Amtorg Trading Corporation.
  3. J. C. Buckley, Assistant to the Deputy Administrator, Office of Lend-Lease Administration.
  4. In an attached note for Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, dated February 21, 1941, the Acting Chief of the Division of European Affairs, Ray Atherton, wrote: “I believe you should bring your weight to secure some part of this for the Soviets otherwise our sincerity may be open to question.”