Hopkins Papers: Telegram
The President to the Ambassador in Turkey (Steinhardt)1
Please pass following message immediately to President Inonu from President Roosevelt:
“Prime Minister Churchill and I, having had our meeting with Marshal Stalin, will be in Cairo next Saturday and Sunday,2 accompanied by a representative of the Soviet Government. We should greatly value a meeting with Your Excellency and hope it might be possible for you to join us in Cairo.”
You should if possible hand this message in person to the President, and you must of course impress upon him its extreme secrecy.
Your American [British]3 and Soviet colleagues are being instructed to convey similar messages to President and you should concert with them simultaneous presentation.
You are authorized to tell President Inonu that we have no objection to his consulting his Parliament in secret session regarding his leaving his country if he finds it necessary to do so.
It would be useful if you could accompany the President.
- Sent to Washington via military channels; forwarded by the White House Map Room to the Department of State; and forwarded further by the Department to Steinhardt, in paraphrase, as telegram 924, December 1, 1943, 2 p.m. (740.0011 EW 1939/32358a). Regarding the preparation of the message to Steinhardt, see ante, pp. 586, 593.↩
- December 4 and 5, 1943.↩
- This inadvertent reference to Steinhardt’s “American and Soviet colleagues”, instead of his “British and Soviet colleagues”, may have resulted from a confusion of mutatis mutandis instructions to the typist in connection with the sending of a message on this subject by Churchill to the British Ambassador at Ankara (Knatchbull-Hugessen), which is mentioned in Churchill, p. 415. The error was corrected in the paraphrase sent by the Department to Steinhardt.↩