740.0011 European War 1939/24015: Telegram
The Minister in Finland (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:50 p.m.]
750. Following summarizes our report on public opinion August 16–September 1.
1. Finnish opinion toward United States. Despite fact that so far as Finnish press and radio were concerned, battle for Solomon Islands29 was seen through spectacles fitted in Japan and using German lenses, most people in Finland sensed that all was not going Japan’s way. Entry of Brazil into war30 on side of United Nations was interpreted here as result of American pressure and was not connected in any way in Finnish minds with possible good reasons Brazil itself might have had. As for continuance of normal Finnish-American relations, Finns welcomed views expressed in article of [Page 81] Anne O’Hare McCormick in New York Times of June 8 which emphasized that American foreign policy toward Finland was not dictated from Moscow. Nevertheless Finns felt that we would be subject to continued Russian pressure to force break with Finland and that should Russia win war we could not intercede effectively on behalf of Finland. Obverse of usual thesis that Finns have refrained from further advances against Russians for fear of break with United States was expressed by Finn who said that if we should break relations there would be nothing to restrain such advance. You may be interested to know that on July 31 there were just over 400,000 licensed radio sets in Finland although this statistic to United States still seems largely of potential importance since Finnish and Swedish language broadcasts from United States are simply not picked up in Finland. We still have not changed our view that until American radio propaganda can find a base of operations nearer to Scandinavia than Boston, much of its wordage in Scandinavian and Finnish languages will be lost on empty air.
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6. Anniversaries. Many disparate anniversaries were celebrated in Finland during past 10 days including that as [of] recapture of Enso and Viborg, third anniversary of Russo-German non-aggression pact31 and third anniversary of outbreak of Great War. When Hitler himself in his exhortation to German people to hold through fourth war winter suggested that he also did not know when his war would end Finns began to wonder. Something seemed a little too neat in dream that Germans would knock out Russians and in turn be knocked out themselves leaving Finland to emerge unscathed, its trade debt cancelled, its markets in demand, its eastern boundary secure and its normal position—as always—unassailable.
- Attacks by United States Marines began on August 12, 1942, to consolidate positions, and the Navy Department announced on August 25, 1942, considerable Japanese losses in a naval engagement.↩
- August 22, 1942. For correspondence regarding the cooperation of the United States and Brazil on defense measures, see vol. v, pp. 632 ff.↩
- Signed at Moscow on August 23, 1939; for text, see Department of State, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1948), pp. 76–78, or Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. vii, pp. 245–247.↩