861.24/808: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union (Thompson), at Moscow46

17. For Premier Stalin47 from Harriman.48

“While in America during the last few weeks I have reviewed the program for the supply by my Government of the Moscow Protocol49 items. I am satisfied that the matériel will be made available substantially as promised except as modified in a few items due to our entry in the war, details of which have been cabled to your Government.

Every effort is being made to fill the additional requests. Shipping, however, is increasingly difficult on account of increased demands for transport of our troops and air forces to the Far East and other theatres of war. My Government is, however, determined to make available all the ships possible and it is my hope that you will be satisfied with the increased number of ships placed in your service during the next month.

In spite of the disappointing results during the past 4 months I find all concerned endeavoring to ship what has been promised and to increase the quantities as soon as practicable.

I find at the present time in the United States an ever-increasing sympathy for and understanding of the people of the Soviet Union. The American people listen hourly with intense interest to the reports of the continued advances of your gallant troops.

I am now returning to England but will continue to follow closely the progress of your shipments.

May I add my personal good wishes to you.”

Hull
  1. On January 31 a paraphrased copy of this telegram was handed by the Second Secretary of Embassy at Moscow, Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., to the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov.
  2. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, President of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Prime Minister).
  3. W. Averell Harriman, Special Representative of President Roosevelt, and Chairman of the Special Mission to the Soviet Union, with a British counterpart led by Lord Beaverbrook, held conferences in Moscow, September 29–October 1, 1941. For correspondence concerning the Harriman–Beaverbrook Mission, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 825851, passim.
  4. For text of the First (Moscow) Protocol, October 1, 1941, see Department of State, Soviet Supply Protocols, p. 3; see also Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 841851, passim.