893.24/1488: Telegram

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Dooman) to the Secretary of State

50. Embassy’s 5, January 4, 8 p.m. [a.m.], paragraph 1a. Soviet authorities have now informed British Embassy that they wish to take delivery of Chinese transit goods at Bajgiran on the Soviet-Iranian frontier. The Embassy adds that it assumes that the obvious inconvenience of receiving supplies of railhead at Ashkhabad has failed to persuade the Commissariat for Internal Affairs to allow foreign truck drivers to enter the Soviet Union. It states that in view of Soviet shortage of trucks the Russians prefer Bajgiran to Meshed as transfer point.

Repeated to Chungking.

Dooman