Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Hungary)/11–2845: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)

Washington, November 28, 1945—8 p.m.

2411. Please inform Soviet authorities this Govt feels it essential to the work of the American Reps on ACCs in Hungary, Rumania [Page 914] and Bulgaria that they be allowed all necessary facilities freely to consult among themselves as well as with other American military and civil authorities in Europe. Delay in granting or refusal of clearance for entry of US officials is not only impeding work of American Military Missions but also in some instances work of the ACCs. Several cases have arisen recently including denial on Nov 2 of permission enter Hungary for Lt. Commander Reitzel and four other naval personnel to confer on supply problems; application for entry into Hungary Lt. Col. Willcox on Schuyler’s staff was twice refused; and permission for entry of three American army officers and two civilians from Vienna to confer on problems of Danube river clearance was likewise refused by Voroshilov.

Dept assumes that no restrictions are imposed upon entry into any of these countries of Soviet military or civilian officials whose presence may be desired by the Soviet chairmen of the ACCs, This Govt believes that the Soviet authorities will readily realize that this inequality of treatment is not only personally repugnant to our Reps on the ACCs but that it seriously interferes with their work and their ability to cooperate with their Soviet colleagues.

Please express the hope that the Soviet authorities will see their way clear to issue instructions in order that prompt local clearance may in future be granted US officials who are collaborators of US military and civilian Reps in Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.79

Sent Moscow rptd Bucharest, Budapest and Sofia.80

Byrnes
  1. Telegram 4073, December 6, 1945, noon, from Moscow, reported the sending of a letter to the Soviet Foreign Commissariat in accordance with Department’s instructions set forth in this telegram (740.00119 Control (Hungary) /12–645).↩
  2. Repeated to Budapest as 744, to Bucharest as 627 and to Sofia as 385.↩