861.60/8–3045: Circular telegram
The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic Officers 35
Analysis of Soviet industry by Emb Moscow reached conclusion that there is no evidence of any widespread reconversion at present or planned for near future. Production of military goods appears to be only slightly below wartime peak levels. Up to first week in Aug production of capital goods in USSR plainly limited in first instance by priorities given to war production. Emb feels that with reconversion of but 50% of machinery plants USSR could without any large-scale assistance from abroad produce capital goods in sufficient quantities to provide for rapid reestablishment of production of basic raw materials and consumers goods at pre-war levels. Survey concludes that question of Soviet need for assistance from abroad is inextricably bound up with contd maintenance of war-time arms production and with political-military aims which that production is intended to further.
- At Ankara, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Caserta, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, and Warsaw.↩