740.0011 Moscow/345
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
Memorandum of Conversation
Subject: Turkey and the War; Post-war Planning.
| Participants: | Mr. V. M. Molotov, Commissar for Foreign Affairs. |
| The Secretary. |
During the recess this afternoon, Mr. Molotov brought up the question of Turkey’s entering the war …
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I then proceeded to re-emphasize some of the main points I had made to Marshal Stalin earlier today2 in support of the proposal of President Roosevelt that the three Heads of Government should meet at Basra. I said the stage in the war situation had been reached where we were strongly on the offensive and that if we should wait until the end of the war to formulate a basic foundation for a postwar international program peoples in all of the democracies would be scattered in every direction under every sort of discordant influence by various elements, groups, societies and individuals with the result that nothing would be more impossible at that belated stage than for a country like mine to pursue a suitable post-war program and rally and unite all of the essential forces in support of it. This made it all-important, therefore, that we should realize the disastrous nature of the opposite course of postponing everything until the military decision has been reached. I said that if an official in my country should announce that he were opposed to formulating the fundamental policies for a post-war world until after the war is over, he would be thrown out of power over night.
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3 For the remainder of the memorandum, see post, p. 118. The memorandum is unsigned but bears the typewritten initials “C[ordell] H[ull]” as those of the drafter.