Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
Marshal Stalin to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill 1
Personal and secret message from Premier I. V. Stalin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and to Premier Minister Winston Churchill.
1. I have received your message[s] concerning the negotiations with the Italians2 and the new terms of armistice with Italy.3 Thank you for the information.
Mr. Eden told Mr. Sobolev that Moscow was fully informed about the negotiations with Italy. I have, however, to say that Mr. Eden’s statement does not correspond with reality, as I have received your message in which long passages are omitted and which has no concluding [Page 1087] paragraphs.4 In view of this, it is necessary to state that the Soviet Government is not informed about the negotiations of the British and the Americans with the Italians. Mr. Kerr gives assurance that within a short time he will receive the complete text of your message; although the three days have passed, and Ambassador Kerr has not yet given me the complete text of the message. I cannot understand how such delay could have occurred during the transmission of the information on such important matter.
2. I believe that the time is ripe to organize the military-political Commission of the representatives of the three countries: The United States, Great Britain and the USSR with the purpose of considering the questions concerning the negotiations with the different Governments dissociating themselves from Germany. Until now the matter stood as follows: The United States and Great Britain made agreements but the Soviet Union received information about the results of the agreements between the two countries just as a passive third observer. I have to tell you that it is impossible to tolerate such situation any longer. I propose to establish this Commission and to assign Sicily at the beginning as the place of residence of the Commission.
3. I am waiting for the complete text of your message concerning the negotiations with Italy.5
- Sent to the Soviet Embassy, Washington, which forwarded the Russian original, together with this translation, to the White House. The White House Map Room forwarded the translation to Quebec in telegram No. White 126, August 24, 1943.↩
- See the two telegrams of August 19, 1943, ante, pp. 1062, 1063.↩
- Information on this subject had been given by Eden to the Soviet Chargé at London (Sobolev) late in July. See Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. ii, pp. 341–343. Concerning the United States approach to the Soviet Government on this subject, see ibid., pp. 344–345, 347.↩
- See ante, p. 1062, fn. 1.↩
- According to Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 94, Roosevelt was “very much offended at the tone of this message.” Cf. ante, p. 966. For the response given at Roosevelt’s direction to the Soviet Chargé at Washington (Gromyko) on August 25, 1943, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, p. 21.↩