Office of the Historian

702.6111/2–2145

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Thompson)

[Washington,] March 7, 1945.
Participants: James Clement Dunn, Assistant Secretary of State.78
Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., Acting Chief, Division of Eastern European Affairs.
Jess Fletcher, Vice President, Building Service Employee’s International Union, Seattle, Washington.
Congressman de Lacy, Washington.

Mr. Fletcher called to present the attached documents79 including a letter80 addressed to the Secretary of State from the Governor of Washington81 and a joint memorial82 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington urging the reestablishment of a Soviet Consulate at Seattle, Washington. Mr. Fletcher explained that this proposal had wide support in the State of Washington and he hoped that the State Department could also give its support.

He said he had an appointment to see the Soviet Ambassador83 later in the day.

Mr. Dunn said that he saw no reason why the Department would not regard favorably any request of the Soviet Government to open [Page 1161] a consulate in Seattle, but pointed out that the proper procedure would be for the request to come from the Soviet Government. He said he could assure Mr. Fletcher that such a request would receive sympathetic consideration. He thought, however, that Mr. Fletcher’s proposed representations to the Soviet Ambassador were quite in order and would be more effective if made independently of the Department.

Both Mr. Fletcher and Congressman de Lacy expressed themselves as being very pleased at the Department’s attitude and promised to inform the Department of any further developments.

  1. Assistant Secretary of State for European, Far Eastern, Near Eastern, and African Affairs.↩
  2. None printed.↩
  3. Dated February 21.↩
  4. Mon C. Wallgren.↩
  5. No. 3, dated February 9.↩
  6. Audrey Andreyevich Gromyko.↩