311.6121 Gorin, M. N./37

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

The Soviet Ambassador called to see me today at his request.

The Ambassador said that he was instructed to take up with the release of Mr. Gorin, recently convicted of espionage in Los Angeles. The Ambassador talked at very great length but in essence the request made of this Government by the Soviet Union for the release of Mr. Gorin is as follows:

The Soviet Union desires to obtain, through a Presidential pardon, the release of Mr. Gorin. If the United States will agree to permit the deportation of Mr. Gorin to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union will agree to the deportation of two American citizens now in jail in the Soviet Union, Messrs. Roszkowsky and Jarsky.13 As a reason for the request made, the Ambassador said that in similar cases involving American citizens in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had in at least two instances agreed to the deportation to the United States of two American citizens and, as stated above, would likewise agree to the deportation of these two additional American citizens now in Soviet prisons. An added reason advanced in support of the request was the allegation that Mr. Gorin’s activities had in no wise prejudiced the national defense of the United States and had involved solely information relating to the activities of Japanese spies in California.

I said that the matter would be given consideration and that I would later inform the Ambassador of the decision reached.

In this connection Mr. Oumansky stated that his Government now agreed that Mr. Roszkowsky was an American citizen, born in the United States, and that the reason for the original denial of the Soviet Union that this man was an American citizen was due to the fact that he possessed the same name as another individual in the same locality who had been born in Russia.

A memorandum covering the names of all of the individuals mentioned is attached herewith.14

S[umner] W[ells]
  1. Anton Vladislavovich Zarsky, arrested in March 1940, and in whose behalf the American Embassy in Moscow had intervened.
  2. Not printed.