740.00119 Potsdam/6–645

No. 43
Marshal Stalin to Prime Minister Churchill 1

[Translation?]
top secret

For Prime Minister Churchill from Stalin:

I have received your message of May 29th.3 A few hours after I had received it Mr. Hopkins was with me and told me that President [Page 89] Truman thinks the most convenient date for a meeting of the three would be June 15th.4 I have no objection to that date if you also agree to it.

I send you my best wishes.

  1. Printed from a copy of a courtesy copy received by the American Embassy at Moscow on June 1.
  2. So dated in Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 581, and in Stalin’s Correspondence, vol. i, p. 362.
  3. See document No. 39.
  4. The following note by Charles E. Bohlen, dated June 1, is typed on the source copy:

    “I called Mr. Pavlov to verify the question of the date of the meeting. He confirmed that both Marshal Stalin and Mr. Molotov and himself had clearly understood that the President desired it around the middle of July.

    “After verifying the text of Marshal Stalin’s message to Mr. Churchill, Mr. Pavlov telephoned back to say that in the original there was no mistake and the date had been clearly written July 15th and not repeat not June.”

    The correct date was in the message as received by Churchill. See Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 581.