Office of the Historian

701.60C61/32: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State

Kuibyshev (Moscow), July 7, 1942—3 p.m.
[Received 3:25 p.m.]

584. Moscow’s 225, July 2, 1 p.m.12 The Polish Embassy states that on July 2 the office of the Embassy’s representative at Archangel [Page 159] was searched by agents of the NKVD13 and all members of the staff (with the exception of the Second Secretary of the Embassy who was absent) were arrested. The archives, seals and cash were seized. Subsequently the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs notified the Embassy that the Polish offices at Archangel and Vladivostok must be closed immediately.14

Repeated to Moscow and Vladivostok.

Thurston
  1. Not printed; it reported the arrest on June 30, 1942, of August Zaleski, First Secretary of the Polish Embassy, at Vladivostok where he was engaged in extending relief to Polish citizens (701.60C61/31).↩
  2. The secret police of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.↩
  3. A little later, in telegram No. 597 of July 11, 1942, Ambassador Standley reported that the Secretaries arrested at Archangel and Vladivostok had been released on condition that they would leave the Soviet Union (701.60C61/33).↩