Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV

123 Wallace, William: Telegram

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

restricted

Moscow, February 1, 1947—1 p. m.

264. On December 31 I wrote to Molotov¹ asking that he give personal consideration to my request that Soviet wives of Vice Consul William Wallace and FSC Louis Hirshfield be given visas to travel to USA. Vyshinski² replied January 30 as follows (in translation):

“In connection with your letter of December 31, 1946 addressed to Minister V. M. Molotov with regard to departure from USSR to USA of Soviet citizens, Golovina³ and Savina,⁴ I inform you that on basis of information received by Ministry of FonAff, competent Soviet organs did not consider it possible to grant their request to leave USSR for USA.”⁵

Smith

1. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.
2. Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, first Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.
3. Galya Golovina, wife of William E. Wallace.
4. Mela Borisovna Savina (Savine), wife of Louis M. Hirshfield.
5. In response to this note, Ambassador Smith again sent two similar letters on February 27, in which he requested that these cases would be reconsidered by “the appropriate higher Soviet authorities” and that these unnatural situations might possibly be remedied out of humane considerations. Copies of these letters, not printed, were sent to the Department of State in despatches 958 and 959 from Moscow on March 7.