811.2361/42: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Hamilton) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 20—8:21 a.m.]
1642. My 1636, October 19, 5 a.m. [p.m.].75 Mr. Nelson’s 10-day stay in Moscow was marked by extreme cordiality and exceptional cooperation on the part of all the Soviet officials with whom he came in contact. On the morning after his arrival he visited an exhibit of captured German trophies and in the afternoon was received by Mikoyan, Commissar of Foreign Trade. During this meeting Mr. Nelson expressed his pleasure at visiting the Soviet Union and stated that he hoped to be able to see anything which the Soviet Government felt would be of interest to him and desired to show him. Mikoyan replied that Mr. Nelson would be shown anything in the Soviet Union he wished to see and designated an official of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade to work out a program with Mr. Nelson’s assistant. A list on [of] plants in which Mr. Nelson was interested was subsequently submitted and he was taken on trips to all types of plants represented on this list which are located in the Moscow area. It was also suggested by the Russians that he visit other factories in neighboring cities of the type in which he had expressed an interest but he felt that he had obtained an adequate idea of Russian production and methods from the plants seen in Moscow and that trips outside the city were not essential.
During his stay in Moscow Mr. Nelson visited factories manufacturing trucks, light machine guns, Stormovik bombers, small arms, airplane motors and electrolytic copper. He was taken on a motor trip around Moscow, a tour through the Kremlin, a tour of the Moscow subway system and a boat trip on the Moscow Volga Canal. On October 12 Mr. Nelson was the guest of Mikoyan at a formal banquet at the Spiridonovka Guest House attended by 40 guests. On October 14 a large reception was given for him at the Embassy at Spaso76 which was attended by some 20 Soviet officials including Mikoyan, Vyshinski, Litvinoff and four Soviet generals. The chiefs of the diplomatic missions in Moscow and their military attachés and the American correspondents here were also guests at the Spaso reception.
[Page 716]On all his visits Mr. Nelson was accompanied by an officer from the staff of either the Embassy, the Military Attaché, the Naval Attaché or the Supply Mission.
In addition to several long talks with Mikoyan Mr. Nelson was received by both Stalin and Molotov and had conversations with them of more than an hour each.
On his trip back to the U.S. via the Alsib route Mr. Nelson plans to visit a four-engine bomber factory and synthetic rubber plant at Kazan, the steel plants at Magnitogorsk and a fighter factory at Novosibirsk.
The hospitality displayed by the Russians during Mr. Nelson’s visit was probably primarily a personal tribute to him for the substantial part he has played providing material assistance to the Soviet Union and the Red army. He was also considered a symbol of the resourcefulness, ingenuity, and vastness of American industrial production which has made such an impressive record in the past 2 years. The attention paid him likewise reflects the deep interest of the highest Soviet leaders in questions of [apparent omission].