861.404/561: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Hamilton)
1241. Over a month ago Father Laberge applied to the Soviet Embassy for a visa (your 954, March 21),67 but so far no authorization has been received from Moscow.
Please take up this matter with Foreign Office and express the hope that Soviet Government will find it possible to expedite favorable action in regard to Father Laberge’s application.
For your information and such use as you may consider advisable:
It will not be understood in this country why the request to send Father Laberge to assist Father Braun in his religious duties in the Soviet Union has not been granted by the Soviet Government particularly in view of the recent visit of Father Orlemanski68 and the publication in this country of Stalin’s letter to him.69
Please telegraph the results of your representations.
- Not printed; in it the Ambassador in the Soviet Union advised that the acceptance of Father Laberge did not lie with the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, and that it was not possible to indicate when an answer might be made to the request for a visa (861.404/561).↩
- Stanislaus (Stanislaw) Orlemanski, priest in a Roman Catholic church in Springfield, Massachusetts, upon the invitation of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Stalin, visited the Soviet Union between April 13 and May 6, “to study the situation of the Poles and the Polish Army in the USSR.” (760C.61/2291) For further information on this visit, see vol. iii, pp. 1398–1409, passim. ↩
- See telegram 1618, May 9, from Moscow, p. 868.↩