861.24/827: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston)
68. Personal for Thurston. Please transmit to Stalin the following message from the President:56
“I am much pleased that your Government has expressed its willingness to receive as the Ambassador of the United States my old and trusted friend, Admiral Standley.57 The Ambassador and I have been closely associated for many years. I have complete confidence in him and recommend him to you not only as a man of energy and integrity but also as one who is appreciative of and an admirer of the accomplishments of the Soviet Union, which, you will recall, he visited with Mr. Harriman last year. Since his return from Moscow Admiral Standley has already done much to further understanding in the United States of the situation in the Soviet Union and with his rich background and his knowledge of the problems which are facing our respective countries I am sure that with your cooperation he will meet with success in his efforts to bring them still more closely together.
“It has just been brought to my attention that the Soviet Government has placed with us requisitions for munitions and supplies of a [Page 691] value which will exceed the billion dollars which last autumn were placed at its disposal under the Lend-Lease Act58 following an exchange of letters between us.59 I propose, therefore, that under this same Act a second billion dollars be placed at the disposal of your Government upon the same conditions as those upon which the first billion were allocated. In case you have any counter-suggestions to offer with regard to the terms under which the second billion dollars should be made available, you may be sure that they will be given careful and sympathetic consideration. In any event it may prove mutually desirable later, in order to meet changing conditions, to review such financial arrangements as we may enter into now.” Roosevelt.
- The Chargé in the Soviet Union reported in his telegram No. 136, February 13, 1942, 11 a.m., that he had handed to Lozovsky a note addressed to Molotov containing a paraphrase of the President’s message to Stalin (861.24/828).↩
- Rear Adm. William H. Standley.↩
- Approved March 11, 1941; 55 Stat. 31.↩
- Regarding the first loan of one billion dollars to the Soviet Union, see telegrams No. 1867, November 2, 1941, to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, and No. 1890, November 6, 1941, from the Ambassador, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 852 and 855, respectively. On the authorization of the immediate transfer of defense supplies to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, see the letter from President Roosevelt to the Lend-Lease Administrator, November 7, 1941, ibid., p. 857.↩