811.711/1600: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt)
586. 1. You may, unless you desire to make some counter suggestion, address a note to the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs reading somewhat as follows:
“I have brought to the attention of my Government the contents of the note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of (date)48 relating to the destruction by the postal authorities of the United States of certain mail matter originating in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“Acting under instructions, I now have the honor to inform Your Excellency that under date of March 10, 1941, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington addressed a note to the Secretary of State protesting at the action referred to above of the United States postal authorities. [Page 743] After having submitted the Ambassador’s protest to the appropriate American authorities, the Secretary of State under date of April 14, 1941 addressed a note to the Soviet Ambassador which set forth in full the legal basis and reasons for the action of the United States postal authorities. My Government informs me that it has nothing to add to the statements contained in that note. It desires, however, again to emphasize the fact that the authorities of the United States, in determining whether or not delivery should be made of matter sent to the United States through the mails, are not discriminating with regard to country of origin.
“I am further authorized to state that the United States Governmen has no knowledge of the imposition of any limitations upon the placing of subscriptions to American publications by Soviet organizations and citizens. The statement contained in the note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs is the first intimation received that any such limitations are even alleged to exist. My Government desires that it be made clear that there are no governmental regulations which would prohibit American private publishers or distributors in the United States of American publications from accepting subscriptions from persons or organizations in the Soviet Union.”
2. In case the communication received from the Soviet Foreign Office is a third person note, you will of course desire to make the appropriate textual changes in the suggested drafted reply outlined above.
3. For your further background and information it may be added that in the note of April 14 referred to above, the Department of State pointed out that the regrets of the Government of the United States had already been conveyed to the Soviet Ambassador “that mail addressed to the Soviet Embassy and consular offices should have been detained by authorities of the United States.” Attached to the note was a decision of the Attorney General dated December 10, 1940. The essence of this decision is that if it is found that mail matter entering the United States is of such a character that distributors of it in this country would be subject to the provisions of the Act of June 8, 1938, as amended—that is, the Act requiring the registration of agents of foreign principals, and that if it is further found that the foreign mailers of the matter have not complied with Section II of that Act by registering as foreign agents with the State Department, the Postmaster General is authorized, in the opinion of the Attorney General, under Section I of Title 12 of the Act of June 15, 1917,49 to exclude the matter from the United States mails. It is the understanding of this Department that the United States postal authorities at the present time are not preventing the delivery of Soviet publications in the Russian language in this country of a scientific or commercial nature or of long established Soviet newspapers [Page 744] and periodicals which are not primarily of a propaganda nature and which are published in the Russian language.
4. In your conversations on this subject you are free to state that your Government has no knowledge of any direct or indirect pressure brought to bear upon American publishers or distributors of periodicals to prevent publications from going forward to the Soviet Union; that in view of the free system of distribution prevailing in the United States it would be practically impossible to prevent such periodicals from going forward to the Soviet Union; and that your Government is of the opinion that the Soviet Government has been misinformed regarding the situation in this respect.
5. The Department sees no objection to your emphasizing, during your conversations on this subject with the Soviet authorities, the fact that even under present conditions Soviet publications entering the United States are distributed in the United States more freely through the mails than American publications are distributed through postal channels in the Soviet Union. Therefore, the reference in the Soviet note to the reestablishment of normal postal connections is not understood by either yourself or the American Government.