Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume IV

711.61/6–948

The Embassy of the Soviet Union to the Department of State

[Translation]
No. 107

The Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics presents its compliments to the Department of State of the United States of America and on instructions from the Soviet Government has the honor to state the following:

In the magazine Newsweek of May 17, 1948 in connection with a speech by Commander of the Strategic Air Command of the United States, General Kenney, in Bangor, Maine, on May 7, 1948,¹ an article appeared containing libelous inventions concerning the Soviet Union which portrayed the Soviet Union as an aggressor as though it were preparing an attack upon the United States. In this article is also set forth a plan to use American air forces, air bases and atomic bombs against the Soviet Union, particularly for the destruction of Soviet cities such as Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, and others. Speaking of plans for attack on the Soviet Union by American aircraft with atomic bombs, the magazine Newsweek states: “Their targets: first Moscow—Moscow above all. Then the other large cities of European Russia—Kiev, Leningrad, Kharkov, and Odessa”. It is further stated in the article that American strategists are thinking in terms of “closing the circle of air bases around Russia” in order to “make it smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter, until the Russians are throttled.” This plan, as described in the magazine Newsweek, envisages combined air, naval, and ground operations from American bases located near the Russian mainland and their use for intensive bombing raids and attacks by guided missiles.

The publication of this article, which is an example of unbridled propaganda for a new war against the Soviet Union, is a rude violation of the resolution of the Second Session of the General Assembly, which states that:

“The General Assembly,

1. Condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.

2. Requests the Government of each Member to take appropriate steps within its constitutional limits:

(a) to promote, by all means of publicity and propaganda available to them, friendly relations among nations based upon the Purposes and Principles of the Charter;

(b) to encourage the dissemination of all information designed to give expression to the undoubted desire of all peoples for peace.”

The Governments whose representatives voted for this resolution at the Second Session of the General Assembly should, as stated in the resolution of the Assembly, promote by all means of propaganda at their disposal friendly relations among nations based on the purposes and principles of the Charter. The Governments which accepted this resolution should at the same time bear responsibility for acts committed on their territories which are in the nature of war propaganda and thereby violate the resolution.

The Soviet Government considers it necessary to draw the attention of the Government of the United States of America to the above-mentioned ‘article in the magazine Newsweek, inasmuch as the appearance of such articles is in clear contradiction to the resolution against propaganda for a new war unanimously adopted by the states members of the UN, including the United States of America.

The Soviet Government is simultaneously sending a copy of this note to the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Trygve Lie.

Washington, June 9, 1948.

1. Gen. George C. Kenney had made his speech to the State Federation of Women’s Clubs.