Office of the Historian

740.00119 Council/9–2245: Telegram

President Truman to the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin)75

[Washington, September 22, 1945.]

[346.] I am informed that Mr. Molotov is considering withdrawing from the Council of Foreign Ministers in London because of difficulty in reaching an agreement as to the participation of France and China in discussions of the Balkan situation.

I urgently request that you communicate with Mr. Molotov telling him that because of the bad effect it would have on world peace he should not permit the Council to be broken up.

  1. Transmitted to the Soviet Government in a letter of September 22, 1945, from Edward Page, Jr., First Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union, to Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyshinsky.

    The manner in which this message was prepared in trans-Atlantic consultation between the Secretary of State and Adm. William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, is described in Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 103, and in Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. i: Year of Decisions (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955), p. 517. In White House message No. 347, September 22, Admiral Leahy informed the Secretary that the President had sent this message to Stalin.

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