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

740.00119 Council/9–845

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State

[ Washington ,] September 8, 1945.

The Soviet Chargé³⁷ called at his request. He stated that he had come at the direction of Mr. Molotov to inform the Department that Mr. Molotov’s alternate at the meeting of Foreign Ministers in London would be Ambassador Fedor Tarasovich Gusev, the Soviet Ambassador in London.³⁸ I thanked him for this information and told him that we would promptly inform Secretary Byrnes.

The Chargé asked me how long I would estimate that this meeting of the Foreign Ministers would take. I said that, for my own sake, I hoped that the Secretary would not be away more than three weeks and that I believed it was his hope that he could return for pressing duties here after two weeks or so in London. By that time, the Foreign Ministers would have had an opportunity to go over the main questions and leave directives for further work with the staffs who would remain in London. The Chargé said that he too hoped that the meeting would not be too prolonged but, remembering that many other Foreign Ministers, such as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia,³⁹ were to be in London and would wish to be received, he thought that the amount of work before the Foreign Ministers was very considerable.

Dean Acheson

37. Nikolai Vasilyevich Novikov.
38. Telegram 3193, September 7, from Moscow, reported that British Ambassador Clark Kerr had been informed by Foreign Commissar Molotov that Gusev would serve as Molotov’s Deputy on the Council of Foreign Ministers. The telegram added, “Molotov apologetically said that the Soviet Foreign Service was very short of good men and that Gusev had some able assistants.” (740.00119–Council/9–745)
39. Jan Masaryk.