741.6111/54
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called to see me at his request. The Ambassador brought up first the question of the negotiations between the British Government and the Soviet Union concerning [Page 532] the desire of the latter for an agreement concerning its post-war boundaries. The Ambassador gave me a telegram he had received from Mr. Eden, of which the following is the text:
“In the light of your report of your conversation with the President63 we fear that the President may not fully understand the real reason for the importance which we attach to giving Stalin a satisfactory answer. We regard it of the highest importance at this stage of the war to leave nothing undone which may enable us to get into real contact with Stalin, to exchange ideas with him freely on all subjects connected with the conduct of the war and thus to give ourselves the maximum chance of securing that Soviet Government should pay some attention to our views and those of the United States Government. To take one example alone, we cannot conceive that Stalin will enter the war against Japan or would pay the slightest attention to suggestions from us that he should consider doing so, until his demands are out of the way.
“That at this moment we should have no real consultation with Russia seems to us most unfortunate; and we feel that it is highly unwise that we should deprive ourselves of the chance of establishing such contacts by refusing to admit Stalin’s claim to the Baltic States, the implementation of which we shall be quite unable to prevent as the President recognizes.
“Stalin, we are convinced, wants to be sure that we support him in his minimum war aims. Stalin would regard the President’s reply as being equivalent to saying that we rather hope Russia will not recover the Baltic States but recognize that we could not do anything about it if she did. This will surely appear to Stalin so uncollaborative a state of mind as to confirm his suspicion that he can expect no real consideration for Russian interests from ourselves or the United States; that we wish Russia to continue fighting the war for British and American ends; and that we would not mind seeing Russia and Germany mutually exhaust each other. This confirms naturally Russia’s inclination to have no regard for anything but Russia’s own interest and would make impossible any fruitful collaboration with Russia at this critical juncture.
“We must face the fact that our present relations with Russia are definitely unsatisfactory and as such constitute a weakness and indeed a danger to our war effort as a whole. If therefore we do not now make concession of demands by Stalin in the hope of thereby improving our relations, and if relations, as we fear, continue to deteriorate, we shall always reproach ourselves for not having done all we could while there was still time.
“Please make these points to President Roosevelt at the earliest possible moment in whatever way you think best.”
I read the memorandum and then stated that the President intended to see the Soviet Ambassador to discuss this question in the immediate [Page 533] future,64 but that I would see the President before his interview with Mr. Litvinov and give him this statement of the British Government view.65
- Lord Halifax had seen President Roosevelt at noon on Sunday, March 8, 1942, but no record of the conversation has been found in Department files or at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩
- President Roosevelt saw Ambassador Litvinov at 10:30 a.m. on March 12, but no record of the conversation has been found in Department files or at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩
- Welles had seen President Roosevelt at 10 a.m. on March 12, but no record of the conversation has been found in Department files or at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩