123 Higgs, L. Randolph: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 18—12:21 p.m.]
4879. ReEmbs 4709, December 8, 10 p.m. I have received a letter dated December 14 from Dekanozov.
Referring to Kennan’s letter of November 1628 about the appointment of Hamilton and stating that that letter had been submitted to the Chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Helsinki for his opinion, Dekanozov added that he wished however to invite attention to the passage in Kennan’s letter stating that Hamilton would represent our interests in Finland in the same manner as the American representatives in Bulgaria and Rumania. As I would of course understand, there was no analogy between these questions, since the American representatives were appointed to Bulgaria and Rumania as the result of the armistice agreement concluded with those countries, and this had arisen from the fact that the American Government had been at war with each of them, whereas this had not been the case with Finland. He undertook to inform me of the decision which would be taken after the receipt of the answer of the Chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Finland.
I have replied to his letter under date of December 16 along the following lines: That I did not understand his statements about the lack of analogy between the manner in which Hamilton would represent our interests in Finland and the manner in which those interests were represented by our representatives in Rumania and Bulgaria; that as Kennan had explained, we did not wish to draw any analogy between Hamilton’s functions and those of our representatives [Page 633] in the Control Commissions, that the officials we had in mind in Rumania and Bulgaria were political representatives; that he would see from our communications on this subject that these appointments were in no way connected with the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria and Rumania and that I did not recall anything in the armistice agreements which could be considered to have bearing on their appointments. I said in conclusion that Kennan had drawn this parallel only in order to help them to form a clearer conception of Mr. Hamilton’s proposed position and functions in Finland and that since this purpose did not seem to have been achieved, I proposed that the pertinent passage in Kennan’s letter be considered as withdrawn.
Sent to Department as 4879, repeated to Stockholm as 37.