702.6111/3–2245
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Protocol (Woodward)
| Participants: | Alexander N. Kapustin, Counselor of Soviet Embassy. |
| Llewellyn E. Thompson, Jr., E.E. | |
| Stanley Woodward, PR. |
Supplementing the attached memorandum87 of the conversation between Mr. Kapustin, Counselor of the Soviet Embassy, Mr. Thompson (EE) and myself, I told Mr. Kapustin that I thought the best arrangement for the consular offices at Portland and Seattle would be to call them consular agencies if the Soviet Government did not wish to call them consulates or vice consulates. Mr. Kapustin said the Soviet term was consular representation which Mr. Thompson and I explained was about the same thing as consular agency but that the latter form would be better understood.
The position that I tried to take with Mr. Kapustin was that insofar as the name of the office was concerned it was primarily a Soviet Government matter but that we were interested in having the officer in charge at each post a recognized consul.
The impression I received was that Mr. Kapustin agreed to call the offices consular agencies, and he definitely stated that the officer in charge at each post would have a consular status, and that he would probably be a vice consul.
[Page 1165]I suggested to Mr. Kapustin that the Embassy write in and ask for the recognition of the vice consuls following the procedure already established in the appointment of Soviet Consular Officers.88
- March 22, supra. ↩
- In a memorandum by Mr. Woodward in July 1946, lie stated that the files and records of the Department of State failed “to disclose the receipt of a request from the USSR for the recognition of a Soviet consular representative at Portland or the establishment of a consular office in that City.” Some reports had been received, however, that Konstantin Alexeyevich Efremov, who had been officially recognized as Vice Consul of the Soviet Union at San Francisco, claimed to be Vice Consul stationed at Portland. Mr. Woodward noted that the Consul General at San Francisco, Mikhail Sergeyevich Vavilov, had consular jurisdiction in the states of Oregon and Washington. “Any one of the recognized Soviet consular officials at San Francisco may perform consular functions anywhere in the Consul General’s jurisdiction. A shield at the door would be permissible providing it does not convey the impression that a Soviet Vice Consulate exists at Portland.” (702.6111/7–346)↩