740.0011 EW 1939/9–1844: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)
2234. You are aware of the very grave and far-reaching decision which the Soviet Government has considered taking within the past few days on a vital question at the Dumbarton Oaks conference.9
This and other recent developments which you have reported raise most serious doubts with regard to future long range Soviet policy. I have begun to wonder whether Stalin and the Kremlin have determined to reverse their policy of cooperation with their Western Allies apparently decided upon at Moscow and Teheran and to pursue a contrary course. In deciding how to meet this change in Russian attitude, I should greatly value the benefit of your estimate of the present trend of Soviet policy. I should find particularly helpful your views as to the causes which have brought about this change in Soviet policy toward the United States and likewise a report on the principal causes for the hardening of Russia’s attitude toward Great Britain. To what extent, if any, do you feel that Russian reaction to the meeting of her two Allies without her presence at Quebec10 may be reflected in her recent decisions at Dumbarton Oaks?
I need not tell you that questions of the highest import to the future peace of the world are involved and that I look forward to your reply with the greatest interest.
- This issue concerned the question of voting procedure in the Council of the proposed international organization for the preservation of peace when one of the parties to a dispute was also a member of the Council. On the discussions of this issue in its decisive phase at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, see vol. i, pp. 788–850.↩
- British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and President Roosevelt, together with their military and civilian advisers, met at the Second Quebec Conference between September 11 and 16, 1944. Correspondence on this Conference is scheduled for publication in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations.↩