Office of the Historian

Press Release Issued by the White House, June 11, 194267

Washington, June 11, 1942

The People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mr. V. M. Molotov, following the invitation of the President of the United States of America, arrived in Washington on May 29 and was for some time the President’s guest. This visit to Washington afforded an opportunity for a friendly exchange of views between the President and his advisers on the one hand and Mr. Molotov and his party on the other. Among those who participated in the conversations were: The Soviet Ambassador to the [Page 594] United States, Mr. Maxim Litvinoff; Mr. Harry Hopkins; the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall; and the Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet, Admiral Ernest J. King. Mr. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, joined in subsequent conversations on non-military matters.

In the course of the conversations full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942. In addition, the measures for increasing and speeding up the supplies of planes, tanks, and other kinds of war materials from the United States to the Soviet Union were discussed. Also discussed were the fundamental problems of cooperation of the Soviet Union and the United States in safeguarding peace and security to the freedom-loving peoples after the war. Both sides state with satisfaction the unity of their views on all these questions.

At the conclusion of the visit the President asked Mr. Molotov to inform Mr. Stalin on his behalf that he feels these conversations have been most useful in establishing a basis for fruitful and closer relations between the two governments in the pursuit of the common objectives of the United Nations.

  1. Reprinted from Department of State Bulletin, June 13, 1942, p. 531.

    The text of this press release is in the form composed by Molotov, with one modification. In a memorandum of June 3, 1942, Harry L. Hopkins wrote: “I talked to General Marshall about this [draft] and he felt that the sentence about the second front was too strong and urged that there be no reference to 1942. I called this particularly to the Presidents attention but he, nevertheless, wished to have it included, and the Only amendment made was the one recommended by Mr. Hull, namely, that his name be excluded from those participating in a military conference and a sentence be added, which I drafted as follows: ‘Mr. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, joined in subsequent conversations on non-military matters.’”

    For the position taken by British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill toward the sentence about the creation of a second front in Europe in 1942, and the text of his aide-mémoire, handed to Molotov during his return stay in London, in which he made it clear that “we can therefore give no promise in the matter,” see Churchill, The Second World War, vol. iv: The Hinge of Fate (Boston, 1950), pp. 341–342.

    ↩