740.0011 European War 1939/24582: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:50 p.m.]
831. The Yugoslav Minister28 informed me yesterday that he had learned from a Soviet source which he considers reasonably reliable that the Soviet Government had recently instructed the press to refrain from further references to the creation of a second front or to reports of a public demand in the United States and Great Britain for its immediate establishment. He said that his informant attributed this development to apprehension respecting the effect on Soviet and more specifically Red Army morale of such propaganda taken together with the failure of the second front to develop.
The foregoing report appeared to be supported by the fact that for several days foreign news reports as well as Soviet editorial comment upon the second front have been absent from the Soviet press. News items regarding the popular desire for a second front abroad for the opening of the second front again appear however today.
- Stanoye Simich.↩