Office of the Historian

740.0011 Pacific War/2699: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, August 6, 1942—10 p.m.
[Received August 6—9:44 p.m.]

275. For the President and the Secretary. I called upon Molotov upon my arrival today and delivered the President’s recent messages [Page 617] to Stalin. Molotov stated that of course he would deliver the messages but added that he failed to understand the message to the effect the Japanese would not attack the Soviet Union until the Spring of 1943 for the reason that Litvinov had reported to the Foreign Office that the President had advised him late in July that his information at the time was to the effect that the Japanese would definitely attack the Soviet Union during the first 10 days of August 1942.11 I agreed to report this to the President for possible reconciliation.

Standley
  1. No record of such a conversation with Litvinov has been found in Department files. An earlier warning of a possibility of a Japanese attack had been sent by the President to Stalin; see p. 597.↩