711.6111/14a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley)
791. Please seek an interview with Molotov19 and inform him as follows:
The provisions of Article VII of the Mutual Aid Agreement of June 11, 1942, between the Governments of the United States and the Soviet Union20 are contained in the agreements of a similar nature which the United States has with various other governments. We are now prepared to undertake informal and confidential exploratory conversations with certain of these Governments for the purpose of arriving at a broad agreement on an orderly agenda for the discussion of economic objectives referred to in Article VII.
Therefore, if the Soviet Government so desires, we are prepared to begin such conversations at any time convenient to it. This Government considers it appropriate and more feasible to carry on these preliminary conversations separately with certain of the Governments with which it has such agreements. You may add that we are also communicating in the foregoing sense with the British and Chinese Governments.21
In conveying the foregoing orally to Molotov you should leave with him a memorandum of your statements.22
- Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Department of State Executive Agreement Series No. 253, or 56 Stat. (pt. 2) 1500.↩
- Memorandum handed to the Chinese Ambassador on September 4, 1943, not printed.↩
- In his telegram No. 1298, September 8, 1 p.m., the Ambassador in the Soviet Union reported that as he was unable to see Molotov, he had conveyed to Vyshinski (Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs) on September 7, the statements set forth in the Department’s telegram and had left a memorandum (711.6111/15).↩