711.62114/10–1144
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador of the Soviet Union (Gromyko)82
Excellency: I have the honor to refer to your communication of September 23, 1944, with regard to the regulation of questions connected with the presence on territories under Allied control of Soviet citizens found among German prisoners of war taken by Allied forces.
After consultation with the appropriate military authorities, I find that it has at all times been their policy not to transport to the United States claimants to Soviet citizenship captured by the Allied forces in the fighting against Germany. In those places where such personnel have been captured it has been the practice to turn them over to the British authorities for eventual disposition. A similar procedure is being established for other places where such personnel may be captured. Several thousand individuals have recently been turned over by the United States forces to the British authorities under this policy. Despite the foregoing, some Soviet citizens have been transported to the United States because, in the unsettled conditions prevailing in the combat areas, their identity as Soviet citizens had not been established.
In these circumstances, the Government of the United States is unable to inform you at this time who, among the approximately three hundred thousand prisoners of war in detention in the United States, are claimants to Soviet citizenship. However, this Government will make the necessary arrangements to segregate any claimants to Soviet citizenship at some place to be decided upon where representatives of the Soviet Embassy may have access to them for the purpose of interviewing them.
Any such personnel whose claims to Soviet citizenship are verified by the American military with your Embassy’s cooperation, and whose return to Soviet control is requested by you, will be turned over to your authorities. Pending such turning over, these individuals will be housed, clothed, and messed, and given necessary medical [Page 1263] care and attention in all respects according to the same standards as are applied to the United States military personnel.
The personnel whose transfer to Soviet control has been requested by you will be delivered at a United States west coast port at such time and in such numbers as Soviet ships are there available to receive them for transportation to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
It will be appreciated if you will indicate to this Government, at an early date, the general types of work upon which it will be agreeable to have these personnel employed while they are awaiting transportation as described above. Pending receipt of your views in this regard, it is the intention of this Government to employ them in suitable civilian occupations, primarily though not exclusively agricultural, during the hours and according to the working standards which are current for the civil workers in the region employed at the same work. They would continue to be paid at their present rate of 80 cents per day for such work. Apart from the above, they will not be required to perform labor except in connection with the administration, management, and maintenance of the installation occupied by them.
No occasion is presented for prohibiting propaganda hostile to the Soviet Union among the personnel in question. No such propaganda has at any time been employed. If, however, it is desired that these personnel be denied the right to receive all newspapers, magazines, and other literature normally published and circulated in the United States, it will be appreciated if you will so advise this Government, so that steps may be taken accordingly.
In view of what has been stated, it will not be necessary to refer to the recruitment of freed Soviet citizens for foreign armed forces except to inform you that at no time has any such recruitment occurred.
Accept [etc.]
- A paraphrase of this note was sent by the Department to the British Embassy in a memorandum of November 8, 1944. Beginning with the second paragraph, this note is itself a close paraphrase of the suggested reply to the Soviet Embassy drawn up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the concurrence of Department of State officials, and sent to the Department in a letter from Admiral Leahy to the Secretary of State on November 2, 1944. In his letter Admiral Leahy also said that since the British War Office, with Foreign Office concurrence, had agreed that all captured Soviet citizens should be returned to Soviet authorities, without exception, “from the military point of view … it is not advisable for the United States Government to proceed otherwise vis-à-vis the Soviet Government with respect to persons in this category.” (711.62114/11–244)↩