Office of the Historian

711.60D/259: Telegram

The Chargé in Finland (McClintock) to the Secretary of State

Helsinki, July 30, 1943—3 p.m.
[Received July 31—12:45 a.m.]

964. I requested an interview of the Foreign Minister this afternoon.

I told Dr. Ramsay that I wanted to see him before leaving for Stockholm as there were always topics of mutual interest to discuss and the war had been moving along considerably since we had last met. I said I had asked for an interview before seeing the communiqué reported in my 962 today1 but that I had had the feeling that something would be forthcoming along that line and wondered if the new grain agreement was only for grain.

The Minister replied that the agreement provided for the shipment of 60,000 tons of rye to Finland before October first. He was unable to tell me the other details of the agreement as the head of the Finnish Delegation, Professor Osara,2 had not yet returned from Berlin. However, he could assure me there had been no political discussions and no political commitments on the part of Finland. “The Germans gave us 60,000 tons of rye: we gave them nothing.” I interjected “Except staying on with them in the War.”

In consequence of this new windfall it would be possible to increase the bread ration and it would probably be restored to the former basis by August 15, said Dr. Ramsay. Negotiations would be resumed in October for further supplies but I had the impression that the Minister was not at all sure what Finland would get at that time, and that this question would depend on Finland’s constancy in remaining beside Germany.

Turning to Finnish-American relations Dr. Ramsay said he had had a long discussion with his colleagues in the Government as to the meaning [Page 287] of Secretary Hull’s comment to the press on the 26th.3 He himself took “marginal case” to mean Finland was near the verge but not on the other side of it. I said I thought the expression might be taken either way and that perhaps the Secretary’s remarks might not be unrelated to the note I left with him on April 8.

On this point the Minister said he had had this note much in mind, and that “now it was purely a hypothetical case” he could tell me that he had wondered whether the terms of the note would have applied if Finland had given in on the question of the return of the SS troops, particularly since the SS question was not “a new matter”. I said I was very glad the SS question had remained purely hypothetical but that conceivably the terms of my note might have applied. I had been encouraged at the time, however, to see that the Finnish Government was returning a negative answer to Germany on an even more important question.4

Ramsay said in any case “no one had the moral right to ask unconditional surrender of Finland”. I replied we were not asking anything of Finland any more, except that, of course, my note of April 8 should be kept in mind. I supposed the ones who were more interested in asking “Unconditional Surrender” of Finland were the Russians.

McClintock
  1. Not printed; it reported that during Finnish-German trade negotiations at Berlin, July 21–29, an agreement was reached on Finnish-German trade for the second half of 1943, and that provision of Finnish supply requirements till new harvest was secured (860D.24/218). The accord included the signing of a “Second Protocol” to the basic German-Finnish trade treaty of March 24, 1934; for text of the protocol, see Finland, Treaty Series, 1943, No. 8, p. 43; for text of the 1934 treaty, see League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cxlix, p. 343.↩
  2. Nils A. Osara, Finnish Assistant Minister of Supply.↩

  3. The reference is to the following questions and answers in the Secretary’s press conference of that day:

    “Question: Mr. Secretary, does the unconditional surrender doctrine apply to Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria? Are they considered a part of the Axis in the sense that they too must surrender unconditionally?

    “Answer: I would refer that question for confirmation to the War Department and the President, the Commander-in-Chief. The question would certainly be raised against any and all countries that have declared war at any time against the United Nations. I imagine that all nations who have thus far declared war to be in the same group, or numerous other groups such as the one to which you refer.

    “Question: Presumably then, Sir, it would apply to Finland.

    “Answer: I would not undertake to go into those marginal cases offhand.”

    ↩
  4. See footnote 87, p. 280.↩