740.0011 EW/6–2045
No. 83
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
to the Secretary of State
Memorandum for the Secretary of State
The Joint Chiefs of Staff request that the following message be dispatched, without delay, to Ambassador Harriman for delivery to the Soviet Foreign Office:1
“This Government is informed that the Soviet authorities are withholding permission to allow the advance U. S. party to enter Berlin in order to get underway with the numerous arrangements necessary for U. S. communications and personnel for the coming conference of the Heads of State. If arrangements required for the President of the United States are to be completed by the proposed date, they should already have been initiated.
It is requested that the necessary permission be granted at once in order that all required preparations may go forward. In case this permission cannot be granted, it may be necessary to delay the proposed date of the meeting and, at the present time, there appears no [Page 113] explanation can be given for such a delay except the lack of permission from the Soviet authorities for us to make the necessary arrangements.”
Fleet Admiral, U. S. N. Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
- The message which follows was dispatched verbatim to Harriman in telegram No. 1342 of June 20 and a paraphrase was incorporated into Harriman’s note No. 348 of June 20 to Vyshinsky.↩