Office of the Historian

740.00119 EAC/3–2945

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Political Adviser to the United States Delegation to the European Advisory Commission (Mosely)

[London,] March 29, 1945.

Sir William Strang called me on the telephone late this afternoon to inform the Ambassador of the preliminary Soviet reaction to a British démarche. On March 24 the Foreign Office had instructed Sir Archibald Clark Kerr9 to present to Mr. Molotov10 in writing the British concern at the inability of the Commission to advance its work. The communication recalled the Soviet Note of last October11 which had stated that the Soviet Government wished to see the Commission complete a wide range of work. It went on to list a number of matters awaiting action by the Commission and to point out why a number of those matters required urgent consideration. The communication concluded by urging the Soviet Government to put Mr. Gousev in a position which would enable him to act on these matters.

In response to these representations Mr. Vyshinsky,12 acting for Mr. Molotov, who was unable to see Sir Archibald, had received the British Ambassador on March 28 and had given him an interim and verbal reply.

Mr. Vyshinsky stated that the Yalta Conference had been responsible for the delay, inasmuch as Mr. Gousev had been taken away from his usual post, that instructions on several of the urgent matters had already been sent to Mr. Gousev in London, and that Mr. Molotov would reply in a few days to the British representations.

Sir Archibald found nothing in Mr. Vyshinsky’s attitude to suggest a desire on the part of the Soviet Government to hinder or delay the work of the European Advisory Commission.

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Sir William asked me to report this interim reply to the Ambassador. I thanked him for informing us so promptly of the British representations and of the interim response.

Philip E. Mosely
  1. British Ambassador in the Soviet Union↩
  2. Vyaeheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union↩
  3. See telegram 9851, November 11, 1944, from London, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. i, p. 393 ↩
  4. Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, First Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union↩