740.00119 E.W./9–2044: Telegram
The Minister in Sweden ( Johnson ) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 20—noon.]
3750. The following information from Finnish General Headquarters has come through Finnish informant afternoon of September 19. In addition to Finnish peace terms previously reported in my cables, all telegraph, telephone, post, radio, air and ship communications between Finland and other countries are to be controlled by Russian Commission97 which will arrive in Helsinki today.98 (My 1112, September 20, 1 p.m., to London repeats this message) Extensive control over Finnish ore industry with particular reference to paper and woodpulp, machine, and shipbuilding, is also in hands of the Commission. All Finnish ships in all foreign ports are to be recalled immediately and placed at disposal of commission. The Finnish Army after clearing at once a path for Russians is to remove all mines from mine fields within a period of approximately 72 hours and then to begin retreat to 1940 frontiers at rate of 15 kilometers per day. The army is to be completely demobilized within 2 months.99 The Åland Islands are to be completely demilitarized. My informant says that anything can happen now in Finland and “the people in foreign countries will never know about it.”
Please repeat at once to Creek’s1 people.
- That is, the Soviet element of the Allied Control Commission which, by the terms of the armistice agreement (annex to article 22), “is an organ of the Allied (Soviet) High Command, to which it is directly subordinated.”↩
- In his telegram 3813 of September 22, 1 p.m., the Minister in Sweden reported the arrival on September 21 of the “first Russian military planes” and stated that Pavel Dmitriyevich Orlov, Soviet Political Adviser to the Allied Control Commission, would arrive soon (103.918/9–2244).↩
- According to the armistice agreement, Finland was “to place her army on a peace footing within two and a half months from the day of signing” of that agreement. See article 4 of the agreement, in British and Foreign State Papers, vol. cxlv, p. 513.↩
- Possibly a reference to Capt. Paul H. Creel, in the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department.↩