740.0011 Moscow/10–1843
Memorandum for the Secretary of State73
Last night, during the intermission at the Ballet, Mr. Vyshinski talked at considerable length with General Deane and myself. Vyshinski expressed the warmest conviction that the future hope of the world rested in collaboration between the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and that without such collaboration he feared there would be no future. He said that the first task was the utter defeat of Germany and after that Japan and then there would be no more trouble in the world. With reference to Japan, he said that that was a subject which would have to be handled “wisely” and it must be taken in its proper turn.
Mr. Vyshinski then went on to say that in the past the difficulties between Great Britain and Russia had been due to the fact that the Czar’s Government pursued an aggressive policy of seizing foreign territory and so did the British, and so they were constantly running into each other. (Mr. Geoffrey Wilson of the British Delegation, who understands Russian, participated in this conversation.) Mr. [Page 629] Vyshinski added that that was all changed now, that all of the three great Powers represented here had sufficient territory, population and resources, that the Soviet Government had no interest in any territories beyond the Soviet frontiers and that there, therefore, was no real obstacle to the development of the closest kind of cooperation.
- Drafted by Charles E. Bohlen of the American delegation.↩