Office of the Historian

196.6/1454: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Henderson) to the Secretary of State

Kuibyshev (Moscow), December 9, 1942—5 p.m.
[Received December 11—2:20 p.m.]

1070. My 881, October 13, 8 [3] p.m.

1.
Zarubin has asked on several occasions whether the American Government has made any decision with regard to his informal proposal. He stated again yesterday that the Soviet authorities would appreciate an early reply.
2.
We have learned from the British Embassy that on November 13 the Soviet Foreign Office made a similar tentative and informal proposal to it.
3.
The British Government has instructed the Embassy as follows:
(a)
The British Government has always been opposed in principle to the giving of spending money or other gratuities to British crews, particularly by foreign governments. It would be willing, nevertheless, to give due consideration to such proposals if they were advanced officially.
(b)
The British Embassy should not take the matter up with the Foreign Office before discussing it with us since it is believed preferable for the two Governments to coordinate their replies.
4.
The British Foreign Office has also informed the Embassy here that the matter is being discussed both in London and Washington by British and American shipping authorities.
5.
The British Embassy has also been instructed that, in case it should discuss the matter with the Soviet authorities along the lines suggested, it should point out that no reply of any sort has ever been received from the Commissariat for Foreign Trade to formal proposals made by the Embassy in September to the effect that crews of British ships in Soviet northern ports be provided with spending money at the diplomatic rate of exchange. Under these proposals, the masters of British vessels would receive rubles against a simple receipt from the British Embassy and the actual exchange transaction would be effected through an Embassy bank account.
6.
The British Embassy is temporarily refraining from taking this matter up with the Foreign Office pending the receipt of instructions to us from the Department.
7.
It is obviously desirable that care should be taken lest the discussions which apparently are taking place simultaneously among various organizations both in London and Washington lead up to divergent conclusions and the consequent misunderstandings.
Henderson