840.51 Frozen Credits/1961½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson)
| Participants: | Mr. Oumansky, the Soviet Ambassador; |
| Mr. Gromyko, the Counselor of the Embassy; | |
| Mr. Acheson. |
The Russian Ambassador called at my request. He was accompanied by the Counselor. I handed him a copy of the attached aide-mémoire,80 together with copies of the President’s Order of June 14, the Treasury regulations,81 and the White House Press Release.
I explained to the Ambassador the requirement for the assurances preceding a general license as stated in the aide-mémoire, and informed him of the general characteristics of the proposed general license, stating that the transactions which will have to be reported 24 hours in advance would probably be any exceeding $25,000 in amount. I then explained to the Ambassador that general licenses for Embassy and consular accounts and for the personal accounts of diplomatic officers would be issued along the lines of the attached memorandum,82 prepared by the Treasury. I did not give the Ambassador a copy of the memorandum.
The Ambassador asked me to explain what he called the discriminatory treatment of his country. I told him that there was no discrimination, but merely a reasonable classification of countries; that the Executive Order applied to the entire continent of Europe and that all the neutral countries were treated alike. He asked whether the same treatment would be accorded Japan. I told him that Japan was not included in the Order, not being an European country, and that it was beyond my knowledge and authority to discuss what might be done in the future. The Ambassador then stated that any treatment which was not universal was in his judgment discriminatory; to which I replied that that was not my understanding of the word.
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