Office of the Historian

740.60D112A/2: Telegram

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

[Extract]
Washington, May 23, 1944—8 p.m.

110. Reference your 401, May 17. Inasmuch as primary purpose of extending Proclaimed List to Finland is to accomplish a political [Page 171] rather than economic warfare objective, Department does not believe it will be necessary to police Finnish industry as has been done in neutral countries. Therefore, Department hopes it will not be necessary to assign an officer to Helsinki for this work.

With regard to your numbered paragraph 7, Department believes your statement to Finnish Foreign Office would be more effective if made concurrently with public announcement by the Department of extension of the List to Finland. The latter will occur on June 2. You are authorized to follow the suggestion contained in the final paragraph of your 401 at such time as you thereafter deem most opportune. For your guidance the Department’s immediately following telegram49 contains the text of the statement released by the Department on May 450 regarding possibility of continuing the Proclaimed List into the postwar period.

With regard to your numbered paragraph 5, there have been no British and American “Watch or Gray Lists” for Finland. The following names were included on the British Statutory List for Finland.…

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Substance of this message is being sent to London and Stockholm.

Hull
  1. No. 109, May 23, not printed.↩
  2. The statement was the penultimate paragraph of an address entitled “Some Economic Weapons in Total Warfare” delivered by Francis H. Russell, Chief of the Division of World Trade Intelligence, on May 4, 1944. For text of address, see Department of State Bulletin, May 6, 1944, p. 405.↩