741.9111/70
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Minister of Iran25 called to see me this morning and took up with me in extenso the question dealt with in the aide-mémoire which he handed me and which is attached herewith.26
I told the Minister that I would be glad to have this question looked into immediately and I would undoubtedly give him some precise reply by the middle of next week.
Before the Minister left he inquired whether the subject of Iran had come up for discussion in the conversations which had taken place during the time of Mr. Molotov’s visit to Washington.27 I replied that no special mention had been made of Iran in these conversations and that I could assure the Minister that the whole tenor of the conversations in Washington was entirely in line with the declarations made by Mr. Molotov to the Supreme Soviet which had been made public, and that this Government was informed that the agreements entered into in London had been made public in their entirety and that, as the Minister knew, the British Government had officially and publicly announced that no secret agreements had been consummated. I repeated that the policy of this Government, as was well known, was governed by the principles set forth in the Atlantic Charter28 and that such policy would be maintained by the Government of the United States. I stated that I had every reason to believe that the policies and positions of the British Government with the Soviet Union would be guided by the same principles.
- Mohammed Schayesteh.↩
- Supra.↩
- For correspondence regarding the visit of the Soviet Foreign Minister, see vol. iii, pp. 543–599, passim.↩
- Joint statement By President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, August 14, 1941, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 367.↩