Office of the Historian

124.613/1171: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, August 11, 1941—1 p.m.
[Received August 12—9:30 a.m.]

1470. Victor V. Shiffer, a Soviet member of the Embassy staff now stationed at Kazan left his quarters early on the evening of August 7 for a walk and did not return. Dickerson subsequently ascertained from the local authorities that Shiffer had been detained and sent to Moscow by the “decision” of the Central authorities without the knowledge of the local government.47

I have addressed a note to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs reporting this occurrence, requesting that an inquiry be made, and that I be advised the outcome.

Steinhardt
  1. For correspondence concerning earlier arrests of Soviet employees of the American Embassy in Moscow, see Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 319–320, 375, 392, 400, 494, 631, and 635–638.↩