361.1121 Pyk, Irena Teodozja/21
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me this afternoon at his request.
The Ambassador said he wished to discuss the decision reached by his Government as a result of the deportation by this Government of Gorin. He stated that he was authorized to inform me officially that orders had now been issued by the Soviet Government for the prompt release and deportation from the Soviet Union to the United States of the two American citizens, Mrs. [Miss] Pyk who had been under sentence of death, and Roszkowski who had been sentenced to jail for a three year term.
I replied that I was glad to receive this information.
I then inquired what the decision of the Soviet Government might be with regard to the request I had made covering the cases of the Russian-born wives of certain American press correspondents now in Moscow.
The Ambassador said that his Government had informed him that it did not believe that these cases should be regarded as having any [Page 951] legitimate connection with the other cases, in as much as the persons involved were, in the eyes of the Soviet Government, Soviet citizens.
I replied to the Ambassador that I had no intention of arguing with him on this point; that my suggestion had been made on the ground that this Government has shown, by the deportation of Gorin, a desire to accede in a friendly and considerate manner to the request made by the Soviet Government; that the granting of permission for these Russian-born wives of American citizens to leave the Soviet Union would create a very good effect in the United States and would have been regarded as an act of comity by this Government. If the Soviet Government refused to respond in this way to the action taken by the United States, that, of course, was a matter for the Soviet Union to determine, but I felt it necessary to register my very deep disappointment at the unresponsive nature of the Soviet Government’s reply in this regard.
The Ambassador gave me to understand that he would take the matter up again with his Government.42
- The full content of this memorandum was sent to Ambassador Steinhardt in telegram No. 460, April 15, 1941 (361.1121 Pyk, Irena Teodozja/16).↩