711.61/780: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 30—6:12 a.m.]
187. Reference my 144, January 23, 8 p.m.,16 and 170, January 25, 8 p.m. Lozovski informed me this afternoon that rubles will hereafter [Page 932] be accepted from all American citizens within the Soviet Union in payment for their transportation from Moscow to Vladivostok, and that instructions to this effect have been issued today. Accordingly I regard this matter as settled as Intourist20 has already confirmed the receipt of the foregoing instructions. Lozovski also stated that the Roszkowski case would be “satisfactorily” disposed of within the course of the next few days. He said that he had not as yet had the opportunity of “looking into” the matter of discrimination against the American newspaper correspondents, but promised to do so by the end of the week. The matter of the Soviet wives has been complicated by the arrest and imprisonment last night of Mrs. Habicht.21 Lozovski disclaimed any knowledge of the arrest or the circumstances which occasioned the same but said that he would discuss the matter with Molotov in connection with the general subject of the Soviet wives. In response to Lozovski’s request the Embassy is issuing tomorrow a considerable number of visas which it has been unable to issue during the past 2 weeks as a result of the pressure of other business.
- Ante, p. 868.↩
- All Union Corporation for Foreign Tourism in the Soviet Union, the official Soviet travel agency.↩
- The wife of Hermann R. Habicht, who had been the representative in Moscow of the Open Road, Inc., New York, N. Y., and then assistant to the United Press representative in Moscow, and representative for the National Broadcasting Company. Mr. Habicht had been staying on in Moscow since 1940, while trying to obtain permission for Mrs. Habicht, a Soviet citizen, her child by a former marriage, and their own American-Soviet child, to leave the Soviet Union with him for the United States.↩