861.001/13: Tetegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received November 8—1:20 p.m.]
1871. Personal for the President and Acting Secretary. Assume you have seen full text of Stalin’s speech last night.27 I regard it in general as highly satisfactory.28 In dealing with general relations [Page 595] with Russia’s Allies he accurately reflects the spirit of the Conference whose decisions he refers to as “historic”. The most important part of his speech deals with the military situation in which, after giving unusual recognition to the contribution to their military success of our combined operations in the Mediterranean, bombing of Germany and supplies he says:
“Naturally the present operations of the Allied armies in the south of Europe can not as yet be considered a second front. But it is nevertheless something in the nature of a second front. Of course the opening up of a real second front in Europe, which is not behind the mountains (meaning not far off), will appreciably hasten the victory over Hitlerite Germany and will further strengthen the comradeship in arms of the Allied States.”
Stalin thus tells the Soviet people that the second front is not far off.
- Speech made in celebration of the XXVI anniversary of the Bolshevik (October 1917) Revolution. To compare substance of the speech made by Stalin on November 6, 1942, see telegram No. 438, November 8, 1942, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iii, p. 475.↩
- In conversation with Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, on November 17, Harriman “expressed appreciation for the credit given by Stalin to the Allied air bombardments in his November 6 speech and explained that recognition of the value of bombing was much appreciated by our Air Force.” (740.0011 European War 1939/32812)↩