123 Smith, Walter Bedell: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State
3468. Personal for Secretary Marshall from Smith. I have had time to assess the results of Soviet currency concordion [sic], briefly, our people here have sustained individual losses averaging from about $100 in case of clerks to about $500 in case of senior officers. I am ashamed to say what my own loss was as I did not know I had so much money.
More important than these individual losses is fact that actual cost of living has increased, because a dollar will buy only 8 rubles now [Page 649] where before it bought 12. Have studied figures carefully and find that now and for some time to come it will cost American personnel here a little less than 30% more to live than before currency change. Have asked Department to raise Moscow post allowance from Class 11 to Class 13, an increase of about 28%, effective December 1, 1947 (Embtels 3464 and 34651).
[Obvious omission] ponderous processes of bureaucratic procedure, and only way I know of expediting action is through your intervention. Our people have been fine and uncomplaining, but when I got here clerks at American House had been eating C rations for a week and if it had not been for turkeys, etc. I brought from Berlin they would have had a very slim Christmas indeed. It would help a great deal if post allowance were increased promptly, and if jump from Class 11 to Class 13 is too high a hurdle possibly they can be increased one grade immediately, also study of our detailed figures in support of larger increase.
I am sending you another message regarding arrests of our Soviet employees and other representative restrictions which are becoming quite serious, together with my recommendations for counter-action.2
Your report to the nation on the Conference was perfectly fine.3
- Neither printed.↩
- In two telegrams 3456 and 3474 from Moscow on December 30 at 11 a. m., and December 31 at 4 p. m., respectively, Ambassador Smith mentioned the arrests and resignations of some of the higher class, old-time Soviet employees which threatened to cripple the operation of the Embassy. He had recommended that a prompt favorable decision to increase the salaries of alien employees was imperative. He also believed that “immediate steps should be taken [to] recruit and train” a small staff of capable Russian translators to work in Germany or the United States. Even if the Soviet Government should not try to wreck the staff inside the country, an “outside staff could be utilized to supplement translating work here” and to keep the magazine Amerika in circulation outside the Soviet Union “should it eventually be banned in the USSR.” (124.613/12–3047)↩
- A radio broadcast over all major networks was made by Secretary of State Marshall from Washington on December 19; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, December 28, 1947, pp. 1244–1247.↩