Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1945, General: Political and Economic Matters, Volume II

S/AE Files: Telegram

The British Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Kerr) to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Bevin)³⁰

[Moscow,] December 3, 1945.

1. Perhaps it might be useful if I were to try to describe present state of mind in Moscow as we see it here, towards the Atomic Bomb in general which may well govern the Russians’ approach to the question and misshape their judgment.

2. For this purpose I should probably reach back a longish way in order to draw in a little of the psychological background of the people upon whose minds the bomb exploded last August. For years they have been toiling after something like security for their country, their system and their own bodies. Nearly all of those who now govern Russia and mould opinion have led hunted lives since their early manhood when they were chased from pillar to post by the Tsarist police. Then came the immense and dangerous gamble of the Revolution followed by the perils and the ups and downs of intervention and civil war. Independence and even ostracism may have brought some passing relief to their country but not to the survival of their system or to their bodies whose safety remained as precarious as ever. Witness the prolonged and internecine struggle that came after the death of Lenin and the years of the purges when their system was wobbling and no one of them knew today whether he would be alive tomorrow. Admission to the League of Nations which synchronised with the turning of the economic corner may have given some slight respite. But this was fugitive and it may be said that through all these years they trembled for the safety of their country and their system as they trembled for their own. Meanwhile, they worked feverishly and by means of a kind of terror till they dragooned an idle and slipshod people without regard for its suffering into building up a machine that might promise the kind of security they rightly felt they needed. The German invasion caught them still unready and swept them to what looked like the brink of defeat. Then came the turn of the tide and with it first the hope and then a growing belief that the immense benison of national security was at last within their reach. As the Red Army moved westwards belief became confidence and the final defeat of Germany made confidence conviction.

3. There was a great exaltation. Russia could be made safe at last. She could put her house in order and more than this from behind her matchless three hundred divisions she could stretch out her hand and take most of what she needed and perhaps more. It was an exquisite moment, all the more so because this resounding success under their guidance justified at last their faith in the permanence of their system.

4. I have reviewed all this in order to recall to you the uncommon, and at times almost unbearable, tension that has strained these people’s lives (it explains perhaps some of their abnormalities); and has hung over the whole history of the movement they have led, and in order also to suggest the measure of relief that must have come to them with the end of Nazism it would be hard to over-estimate.

5. Then plump came the Atomic Bomb. At a blow the balance which had now seemed set and steady was rudely shaken. Russia was balked by the west when everything seemed to be within her grasp. The three hundred divisions were shorn of much of their value. About all this the Kremlin was silent but such was the common talk of the people. But their disappointment was tempered by the belief inspired by such echoes of foreign press as were allowed to reach them that their Western comrades in arms would surely share the bomb with them. That some such expectation as this was shared by the Kremlin became evident in due course. But as time went on and no move came from the West, disappointment turned into irritation and, when the bomb seemed to them to become an instrument of policy, into spleen. It was clear that the West did not trust them. This seemed to justify and it quickened all their old suspicions. It was a humiliation also and the thought of this stirred up memories of the past. We may assume that all these emotions were fully shared by the Kremlin. (Molotov’s speech of the 6th of November and the disturbing absence of any reply to the advance notice of Washington statement³¹).

6. If my interpretation of the state of mind of the Russians is anything like right we may I think expect them to approach the proposal to discuss Atomic Energy in the first instance in the open forum of the General Assembly with all the prickliness of which they are capable.

7. We cannot indeed rule out the possibility of a refusal to discuss it at all. It seems to me therefore that if we are to secure the Russians’ cooperation we must go about things in a different way. I mean that before the Assembly gathers we and the Americans must have preliminary and private talks with Molotov who though unlikely in any circumstances to be willing to sponsor the Washington statements, might then be persuaded to treat the whole matter with goodwill and reason. It would not be enough to approach him through the diplomatic channel.

30. Copy transmitted to the Department under cover of a note from the British Chargé (Balfour), dated December 6, which stated that this document was forwarded at the suggestion of Mr. Bevin, who felt it might be of interest to Mr. Byrnes in view of the forthcoming meeting in Moscow.
31. Reference is to the Tripartite Agreed Declaration of November 15; see bracketed note, p. 75.