740.0011 European War 1939/23808: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 27—2:10 a.m.]
713. On previous occasions important developments in Soviet foreign affairs, such as the Molotov visit to London and Washington, have inevitably been followed by mass meetings at factories and farms throughout the Soviet Union at which expressions of approval of the foreign policies of the Kremlin are voiced. In addition the press has usually followed the same policy by carrying laudatory articles and editorials, as well as voluminous favorable foreign news despatches on the event in question.
There has been no such reaction to the Churchill negotiations. The editorials which appeared in Izvestiya and Pravda on the day the official communiqué was published were lukewarm [and unenthu-?] siastic in character. No editorial comment appeared in such important publications as Red Star, Trud, or Komsolskuya [Komsomolskaya Pravda] and no additional editorial comment has subsequently appeared in the press.
The foreign news despatches on the negotiations have been confined to several small items from England and the United States whereas considerable coverage continues to be given to popular demands in England and the United States for the creation of a second front. To date no mention in the Soviet press has been made of mass meetings to discuss and pass on the negotiations.
These reactions lead to the belief that there has been adopted a policy of “the less said the better” in regard to the Churchill visit and of endeavoring, possibly for purposes of morale, to keep the second front before the eyes of the public. In support of this latter view, the following manifestations have been noted: In news reels, the V for victory sign made by Churchill’s two fingers on departing from Moscow was interpreted as two fingers for a second front and as such was greeted with applause.
The Dieppe raid46 was given unusually wide coverage in the press and statements to the effect that the French masses were ready for invasion are frequently carried.
[Page 635]At a recent Voks47 meeting dedicated to the motion picture industries of the United States and Great Britain poetically all the speakers stressed the second front. Ehrenburg48 stated that the national masses of the United States were demanding a second front and added that in the final analysis the demands of the masses were the guiding factor in formulating national policy.