861.24/1518: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 10—1:25 p.m.]
638. The following telegram has been received from Vladivostok.
“53, June 3, 1 p.m. The appearance of the President’s message to [Page 761] Congress on Lend-Lease2 in the May 30 issue of local newspaper Krasnoe Znamya3 under a Tass date line of May 25 from Washington plus opportunities to meet more Soviet citizens during the past several days than I met during the preceding 4 or 5 months has given me an unusual chance to discuss Lend-Lease.
The people are highly impressed by the fact that almost 26% of all Lend-Lease supplies have been sent to the Soviet Union. They are not however impressed in a like degree by the money value $1,822,000,000 which when converted into terms of Soviet currency at the official rate of exchange amounts to less that [than] 10,000,000,000 rubles, which latter figure is equivalent to approximately 50,000 tons of black bread (now 200 rubles the kilo on the open market). Their reasoning and computation are faulty of course, particularly since they apply the official rate of exchange and the unofficial price of bread in the same computation but are interesting in that the result shows that dollar figures lose a great deal of their value when presented to persons living in an artificial exchange and economic structure.
I have thus far failed to find one local Soviet citizen having or admitting knowledge of the terms of Lend-Lease. All persons with whom I have discussed this subject are of the opinion that either Lend-Lease supplies for the Soviet Union are paid for in cash or kind or that the expression Lend-Lease is simply one used to identify loans advanced by the United States to cover supplies sent by us to our Allies. There exists in the minds of all local Soviet citizens with whom I have discussed Lend-Lease the belief that Lend-Lease is a big business monopoly administered for gain by the United States Government at the expense of its Allies.
Practically all Lend-Lease supplies shipped to the west but the driblets, particularly food, which remains here are sufficient to make the local populace aware of the benefits of American aid. The food situation here is worse today than at any other time since I came here in January, 1941, there being almost a complete dearth of foodstuffs produced locally and in nearby regions. The statement made by local people and which comes to my ears from time to time to the effect that if it were not for aid from the United States they would be starving is not without justification.
Department not informed. Ward.”
[An exchange of telegrams on the occasion of the first anniversary of the signing of the Mutual Aid Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union took place on June 11, 1943, between Secretary of State Hull and People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov. The texts of the telegrams are printed in Department of State Bulletin, June 12, 1943, pages 514–515. Messages were also exchanged between President Roosevelt and Mr. Kalinin, President of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union; for texts of these messages, see ibid., June 19, 1943, pages 543–544.]