Office of the Historian

762.61114/11–2244

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State

[Washington,] November 22, 1944.

The Soviet Ambassador called this afternoon at my request. At the end of our conversation I informed the Ambassador that we had taken up with the War Department his request of November 2085 relative to a delegation of Red Army officers being received by General [Page 1265] Eisenhower in connection with the repatriation of Soviet war prisoners. I told the Ambassador that I was confident Mr. Bohlen would be in a position to call him on the phone in the next day or two and give him a definitive answer.86 The Ambassador seemed very anxious to receive a reply.

E[dward] S[tettinius]
  1. In a memorandum of November 20, 1944, the Soviet Embassy notified the Department that a commission of Soviet officers had been appointed to supervise the repatriation of Soviet war prisoners from Western Europe and requested that General Eisenhower cooperate with them (762.61114/11–2044).↩
  2. On November 24, the Acting Secretary of State informed Ambassador Gromyko orally that the War Department had cabled General Eisenhower recommending that he comply with the Soviet request. On this point the Department of Defense has supplied information to the effect that the action actually taken by the War Department was to refer the matter, with favorable recommendation, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the result that General Eisenhower subsequently received instructions from the Combined Chiefs of Staff.↩