Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, General, Volume I

740.0011 Moscow/10–3043

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State

Moscow, October 30, 1943.

I sat at the right of Marshal Stalin at the dinner given by him to the members of the Tri-partite Conference which came to a close today. He was in a most agreeable state of mind and no matter what subject was discussed he seemed to overlook nothing that might make more clear my understanding of his situation present and prospective. Mr. Stalin proceeded, first, to address me by saying, “You have had a successful conference.” I at once replied that the credit was entirely his, that he had authorized his great country to take the decisive step of joining with Great Britain and the United States in a world program based on cooperation. This seemed to please him. Throughout the conversation he expressed himself as unqualifiedly for a broad program of international cooperation—military, political, economic and peace.

He brought up the matter of his meeting the President at Basra and indicated definitely his conclusion that he in all sincerity could not leave his military emergency conditions here at present, and he then proceeded to say that he would send Mr. Molotov in his stead, since under the Soviet law Mr. Molotov was his duly constituted second-ranking man in the Government, who would take his place on any occasion desirable when he himself might be absent. He asked what I thought of this idea of sending Molotov, and I promptly replied that, of course, if he should find it absolutely impossible to go, Mr. Molotov would make a good representative, but in the mind of the President and myself the main point in the matter is that were Mr. Stalin himself to go it would have a tremendous psychological effect that would extend throughout the world and that I desired still to plead with him if at all possible to get away from his military emergency and to go himself. I got nowhere with this and the conclusion reached by him seemed to be final in his mind.

I inferred that either he or his advisers or both together had talked over this matter many times and that each time they felt that the time had not yet come when the necessities of the military situation or the urgent need for a conference were such as to make his trip favorable from the military standpoint or absolutely necessary from the consultative standpoint, although he based the matter solely on military considerations. I think we have reached a stage where it is necessary to recognize him as being sincere in respect to the military phase. Otherwise, the situation could get hurt rather than helped. I left the matter as to his not going and as to Mr. Molotov’s going just as I have described and there it stands. In the immediate relationship to this question of his going to Basra and as a part of my urgings, I sought to bring out more clearly the tremendous prestige he and the people of Soviet Russia have in many parts of the world and the extreme compelling need for leadership such as he, in conjunction with President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, alone could offer. I said to Marshal Stalin that he had no idea how great was his prestige in the world today and therefore how necessary it is for him to exert leadership without delay, and that failure to do so would be serious and damaging. I then added that through all past history more than three-fourths of the human race until very recently have simply had to have leadership and that real leaders only appear in the world every one or more centuries, and that he himself has demonstrated that leadership both at home and abroad and that he has a responsibility to exercise it in this stage of the gravest possible world crisis by immediately appearing out in the world in close conjunction with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. He agreed that I was correct about the course of human affairs in the past and about the need for leadership now, but made no further response about meeting the President.

Marshal Stalin then said some most confidential things to me about the Pacific area which he requested me to transmit to the President. This I am endeavoring to do without inserting them here.^50a

We had some general exchange of remarks in regard to international cooperation on some of the political and economic phases of the problems ahead.

At the end of the evening’s entertainment at two o’clock in the morning, Marshal Stalin showed every disposition to collaborate and work with the United States and Great Britain. He said that his country was not for isolation and I emphasized the soundness of that view by again pointing out that isolation had almost ruined my country and his. He referred to our two countries and the great necessity for collaboration and cooperation in the most sympathetic and favorable manner. I said that this was wonderful as a program to be carried out, that our two peoples were very much alike in many respects, that each was a great people and that there need be no serious difficulty at all in promoting close understanding and trust and friendship and on these, the spirit of cooperation, to all of which he agreed. I finally added that patience on the part of both countries and especially their leaders in key positions would be necessary in dealing with a mistake made here and there and with intemperate individuals who would be trying to give trouble in both countries, etc., etc.

Mr. Stalin, as we went out from dinner, stopped and two or three of us sat down in an adjoining room for a few minutes before going to the cinema. He proceeded on his own initiative to elaborate in the most sarcastic terms about those who have been circulating reports in the past to the effect that the Soviet Union and Germany might agree on peace terms. He wound up his repeated sarcasm by ridiculing all phases of the matter in unequivocal terms with the idea of effectively disposing of that report. I remarked that any person who knows the Russian people and their relation to Germany in this war know that they are incapable of making a peace with Germany. This he subscribed to very heartily.

1. The message was a promise “to get in and help to defeat the enemy in the Far East after German defeat.” See two telegrams of November 2, 1943, from the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, p. 147.