361.1121/36: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 16—1:45 p.m.]
780. Department’s 327, June 30, 11 p.m. The Embassy communicated the sense of the Department’s telegram under reference to the Foreign Office in a note dated July 3, 1942, to which, after a follow up note dated September 11, had been written a reply dated September 13 has now been received. This note merely states that Oggins is now in Moscow,11 that no objection is perceived to his being visited by a representative of the Embassy, and that the Foreign Office desires to know who will visit him and when. I have instructed Thompson12 to seek an appointment with Oggins through the appropriate authorities in Moscow and have so informed the Foreign Office advising it that Thompson has been designated the American Foreign Service Officer to visit Oggins.
- Despite the statement that Oggins was now in Moscow, the Department received information in telegram No. 807, September 20, 1942, from Kuibyshev that in fact Oggins had not arrived and was not expected for several days. (361.1121/37) Eventually, however, American consular officials visited Oggins in Moscow in the presence of members of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs on December 8, 1942, and January 9, 1943. At these meetings Oggins completed application for a passport for return to the United States whenever he should be released from jail.↩
- Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., Second Secretary of Embassy and Consul, in charge of the staff remaining in Moscow after the removal of the Embassy to Kuibyshev in October 1941.↩