361.1121/6–947
The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Durbrow ) to the Secretary of State
No. 1369
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that the Embassy has just received a note dated April 1 from the American Mission in Bucharest to the effect that most of the deportation cases presented by that Mission for action by the Embassy in Moscow refer to American-born persons who were naturalized in Rumania as minors through their parents’ inscription in the Rumanian nationality lists, and were subsequently expatriated under the provisions of Section 401–a of the Nationality Act of 1940 after reaching 23 years of age.
The Embassy has already presented most of these cases, as well as similar cases from other countries where the preferred claims to American citizenship were not fully substantiated, to the Soviet Foreign Office in routine third person notes. These notes did not demand release of the individuals as American citizens, but gave the basic facts on which the claims to American citizenship were made, and requested the Foreign Office simply to inform the Embassy of the welfare and whereabouts of the claimants and the reasons for their detention in the Soviet Union. The uninformative nature of the Foreign Office replies is well known to the Department.
[Page 731]Ambassador Smith’s letter of April 18, 1947,1 to Foreign Minister Molotov (Embassy’s despatch No. 1173, April 23) also did not presume the American citizenship of these deportees. It did point out, however, that Soviet officials had the right to visit American displaced person camps in order to interview and examine the documents of alleged Soviet citizens and requested [in] reciprocity the similar right for an American [consular] officer to visit claimants to American citizenship held in the Soviet Union for examination of the validity of their claims. Deputy Foreign Minister Vyshinski’s reply of May 24 (Embassy’s despatch No. 1329 of May 282) avoided the basic general issue and merely stated that after careful investigation by Soviet authorities those persons whose presence on Soviet territory had been established were either citizens of the Soviet Union or of a third state. This reply further ignored the Ambassador’s statement that citizenship of another country does not necessarily invalidate American citizenship.
The Embassy feels it should insist on the right of an American consular officer to examine and question persons claiming American citizenship, and on the Ambassador’s return will make a reply to Mr. Vyshinski’s letter (Embtel 1988 June 3). The fact that some of these persons may prove to have lost such citizenship does not affect the principle involved. However, the uncooperative and even belligerent attitude of the Soviet Government as embodied in Mr. Vyshinski’s reply underlines once more the fact that it is essential to have firm legal bases for all our dealings with the Soviet Government. It is not only embarrassing for the Embassy to have the Foreign Office’s counter assertions verified, but it is believed detrimental to the satisfactory conclusion of justifiable cases of protection of American citizens.
It is felt, therefore, that the Embassy’s present efforts to protect those persons having valid claim to American citizenship and to have an American consular officer visit and examine claimants to American citizenship will be weakened by presenting additional cases which are not sufficiently substantiated, until every possible check, outside personal interview, has been made to determine the validity of their claims to American citizenship (see Embassy’s telegram No. 1322 of April 123). Among other things, these checks should include a request to the competent authorities of the country in which the deportee was residing when taken to advise the appropriate American Mission whether that person had in any way acquired citizenship of that country, and if so, in what manner, in order that it may be determined whether such citizenship was acquired in a way that would deprive the individual of his American citizenship.
[Page 732][Here is omitted the consideration of several individual cases for which confirmation or further investigation of validity of claims to United States citizenship was desired before proceeding with representations to the Foreign Ministry. There should be no delay, however, in seeking the release of a deportee when there appeared to be no question of his claim to citizenship, and the right should be insisted upon as a matter of principle for an American consular officer to examine and question persons claiming American citizenship, whether or not the claim should prove to be well founded.]
Respectfully,