Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, The Soviet Union, Volume I

811.20 Defense (M) U.S.S.R./4

The Embassy of the Soviet Union to the Department of State

Memorandum

The Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has received the Memorandum of the Department of State dated August 15, 1941 and in confirmation of oral conversations between officials of the Department of State and the Soviet Ambassador, informs the Department of State that the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has designated the Amtorg Trading Corporation of New York City as the Soviet commercial agency which is authorized to conduct negotiations with the Federal Loan Agency relating to the sale in the United States of various materials listed in the Embassy’s Memorandum of August 12, 1941.⁸⁴ The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has taken notice of the oral statement made on August 15 by Mr. Dean Acheson, Assistant Secretary of State to Mr. Oumansky, Soviet Ambassador, confirming that the envisaged deliveries of Soviet raw materials to the United States have been under discussion between the two Governments irrespective of the pending negotiations in regard to a credit to be opened by the Government of the United States to the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with the purpose of financing the purchases in this country of supplies needed by the Soviet Government in the present emergency.⁸⁵

Washington , September 9, 1941.

84. Not printed, but see second paragraph of footnote 67, p. 819.
85. Ambassador Umansky had inquired “whether the reference to the Federal Loan Agency as the instrumentality which would negotiate for many of the materials on the American side was intended to carry the implication that any credits which might be extended to the Soviet Government would be tied up with the purchase of raw materials.” He was assured that “the Federal Loan Agency was designated because its subsidiaries, such as the Metals Reserve Company and others, were the instrumentalities through which this Government made purchases of strategic materials authorized by acts of Congress and that the designation of that Agency was wholly without prejudice to the question of future loans and independent of that question.” (811.20 Defense (M) U.S.S.R./1b)