861.24/558½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me today at my request.
Before taking up the main question25 which I desired to discuss with the Ambassador, I asked him what progress he was making with regard to the various requests already formulated by him in the name of his Government for export licenses. For the first time in my long series of conversations with the Ambassador, he expressed complete satisfaction with everything that was being done and the deepest appreciation of the steps that had already been taken to release for export certain Soviet orders. He asked me if I could give him an informal opinion as to the reply which would be made to his nine-point memorandum25a handed to me in our previous conversation. I said that with regard to the latter five points, immediate consideration had been given to his requests and it was my preliminary impression that a favorable reply would be made. With regard to the first four requests made, I said that as I understood it these were solely military questions and that I was not as yet in a position to give him the opinion of our military authorities. The Ambassador stated that it was the belief of his Government that the British and United States Governments should consider the replies to be made as upon the basis of what the greatest military advantage to be gained might be, and, if, in the opinion of the two Governments, material was required in the Near East for military purposes rather than in Russia, that, of course, was a matter [Page 787] for us to determine. He said he would like to mention, in the event the United States could make available some short-range bombers to Russia, the bombers could of course be flown from Alaska by way of the Aleutian Islands to Western Russia and that, as Mr. Howard Hughes had discovered on his round-the-world flight,26 the air fields in Siberia from the Pacific to Western Russia were in excellent condition and amply capable of taking care of any trans-continental flight that might be arranged for any bombers sent from here.