Office of the Historian

093.612/56

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State

[Washington,] March 3, 1944.

The Soviet Ambassador called upon me at his request to advise this Government that his Government wished to bestow on General Marshall the Order of Suvorov,78 their highest military order.

He stated likewise that the same order had been conferred on General Eisenhower.79 I immediately took the matter up. The Ambassador asked for a prompt response.

I talked to Colonel Stimson80 and explained the situation. He promised to give me an immediate reply.

E[dward] S[tettinius]
  1. The order named after the famous tsarist general of the XVIII century, Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, was instituted in three classes (degrees) by the Soviet Government on July 29, 1942. The Soviet Ambassador was informed in a note of March 22, 1944, that “General Marshall will be greatly honored to accept the decoration.” (093.612/48)↩
  2. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding general, Allied Forces in European Theater of Operations from December 31, 1943. In regard to the presentation of awards on April 11, see footnote 40, p. 861.↩
  3. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War.↩