361.1115/1–1249

The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Kohler ) to the Secretary of State

[Extracts] secret

No. 28

The Chargé d’Affaires ad interim refers to the Embassy’s Despatches No. 718 of October 41 and No. 841 of December 13, 1948,2 regarding the problem of certain American citizens unable to depart from the Soviet Union and has the honor to transmit four recent Memoranda of Conversations3 between officers in the Consular Section of the Embassy and American citizens either now residing in the U.S.S.R. or, in the case of Mrs. Gizella Kotyuk, with a citizen who has recently been repatriated to the United States.

The Embassy feels that the experiences of these particular citizens, outlined both in the enclosed Memoranda and in the citizenship briefs transmitted to the Department with the despatches under reference, are particularly revealing examples of the general treatment extended during approximately the past eighteen months to all American citizens who have actively sought to enlist their government’s support in establishing their claim to United States citizenship and in departing from the Soviet Union. While the specific examples cited are drawn from the experiences of only some twenty citizens, the treatment [Page 550] disclosed, in the light of evidence revealed in letters and, infrequently, through visits by other American citizens during the past year, appears to be so typical as to justify the preceding generalization.

The following general conclusion would appear to stand out clearly from the material described above. With the exception of the period preceding the War of 1812, perhaps never have so many American citizens been subjected to comparable discriminations, threats, police interrogations, and administrative punishments, all for no greater offence than that of attempting to assert their American citizenship and depart from a country whose regime they abhor more strenuously than many of their more fortnunate fellow citizens residing in the United States. And never, unfortunately, has a United States Embassy been quite so powerless to protect American citizens.

The basic cause of this situation is, of course, entirely beyond the control of the individual citizen involved. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Soviet Government is determined to eliminate once and for all the problem posed by persons desiring to depart for the United States and, on the basis of their claims to American citizenship, taking concrete steps to approach the Embassy for this purpose. The simplest and only humane way to achieve this end—i.e. to permit the departure of all American citizens who desire repatriation to the United States—is incompatible with a very basic and long range policy of the Soviet Government and its rejection of this method should prove surprising only to those who are unaware of the unassailable barriers which the Politburo has erected between the U.S.S.R. and the outside world.

Apart from this basic consideration, special factors must have impelled the Soviet Government to an intensification of its efforts designed to dispel all desire on the part of citizens to press their claims to American nationality. As the depiction of America as a brutal, imperialist state was intensified, the anomaly of persons residing and presumably enjoying the fruits of a socialist society who persisted in expressing their aspirations to return to the United States must have proved increasingly annoying to Soviet authorities at all levels of the government. Other motives are readily suggested. As the overwhelming majority of these citizens are residing in areas which have been incorporated into the U.S.S.R. since 1939 and are now included in the frontier areas closed to all foreigners, the ever-suspicious and ubiquitous state security officials would obviously seek, by any means whatsoever, to isolate individuals living in such critical areas and deny them contact with the Embassy or relatives abroad.

The methods employed by the Soviet authorities and the treatment of American claimants have been outlined to some extent in despatches and citizenship briefs but many tactics involved including some not [Page 551] utilized in cases briefed should not be left unnoted and are worthy of general review.

Soviet Tactics:

Perhaps the most frequent initial tactic of local Soviet authorities confronted by an American citizen attempting to apply for Soviet documentation as a foreign citizen or stateless person residing in the U.S.S.R. or for a Soviet exit visa is to respond with the unqualified statement that the individual in question is a citizen of the U.S.S.R. The Embassy realizes that, in the majority of cases, it could not properly dispute such an assertion although it cannot help but note that hundreds of these persons acquired Soviet citizenship involuntarily on the basis of their status as citizens of a third state, part or all of whose territory has been recently incorporated into the U.S.S.R. The Embassy further notes that the Soviet Government, in several instances during the past four months, has made such assertion in the cases of persons who appear to the Embassy to have an indisputable legal claim to American citizenship only.

In those instances where a citizen has been the subject of previous communications between the Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy is usually informed in a cursory note that the person in question is a Soviet citizen. In cases where the individual previously possessed documentation attesting to the fact that he was not considered a citizen of the U.S.S.R. by Soviet authorities, the note sometimes concludes with the statement that such documentation was issued “through error”. In either case, such a communication conveys no indication of what this decision has meant or will mean to the citizen but information reaching the Embassy, directly or indirectly, in individual cases may assist in clarifying this matter.

The individual is almost always subjected to pressure to accept a Soviet internal passport thus formalizing his status as a citizen of the U.S.S.R. Soviet methods to this end run the scale from persuasion to intimidation and administrative punishments. Applicants are sometimes informed by local OVIR (Soviet Bureau of Visas and Registration) officials that upon acceptance of a Soviet passport they would be issued a Soviet exit visa as soon as they were ready to depart from the U.S.S.R.4 In other cases, Soviet officials, apparently hoping to convince individuals unfamiliar with the provisions of American nationality law that they do not possess a valid claim to United States citizenship and have no alternative but to accept a Soviet internal passport, have made assertions regarding American citizenship and its acquisition which are unfounded and false. If the individual continues [Page 552] to insist upon his claim to American citizenship, more drastic methods are adopted. Many are unable to find employment and others are threatened with deportation to Siberia unless they accept Soviet passports.…

In addition, the harassed, intimidated American citizen, many miles from Moscow, is often entirely unable to communicate with representatives of the United States Government. Soviet authorities have repeatedly refused persons documented as stateless persons or foreigners residing in the U.S.S.R. permission to come to Moscow to discuss their cases with the Embassy. Nor can the citizen ever be certain that all of his letters are delivered to American authorities in Moscow. In several instances, correspondence reaching the Embassy indicates that the citizen in question had previously addressed communications to the Consular Section which were never received by the Embassy.5 And finally there is ample reason to believe that in certain cases citizens have either been prevented from entering the Embassy or arrested upon departing from a visit with Consular officers.

There remains, however, a small number of cases in which the evidence in support of exclusive American citizenship appears so strong that even the Soviet Government may hesitate to ignore it. One possible Soviet tactic in these cases would be to coerce claimants into applying for the citizenship of the U.S.S.R. thus expatriating the citizen in question and providing the Soviet Government with an unanswerable argument.…

Effectiveness of Soviet Tactics:

That the tactics outlined above have been highly effective in intimidating applicants and discouraging them from communicating with or visiting the Embassy is indicated by several developments. The Embassy’s incoming mail from citizens resident in the U.S.S.R. has declined appreciably in the past several months and an increasing amount of its outgoing correspondence remains unanswered or is returned undelivered with such notations as “addressee does not reside at given address”, “addressee departed, destination unknown”, or even “addressee refuses to accept letter.”

In addition, the few visitors who have disregarded Soviet travel restrictions and proceeded to the Embassy in the past few months appear more uniformly apprehensive of the possible consequences of their visit and exhibit a greater degree of pessimism regarding the possibilities of their repatriation.

[Page 553]

The end result of the campaign described above is not difficult to visualize. The Embassy’s correspondence with American citizens will, sooner or later depending upon the vigor with which local security officials press their efforts, be reduced to an insignificant trickle. Personal visits to the Embassy on the part of applicants will cease entirely. Nor would it be surprizing if some of these citizens were either coerced, like certain of the Soviet wives of British and American citizens, or bribed, like the Armenian repatriates who were offered 1000 rubles to write anti-American letters, to author communications indicating their sincere desire to remain in a state where, in contrast to the situation now obtaining in the United States, discrimination and class exploitation have been entirely eliminated.

Conclusion:

The lengths to which the Soviet Government has gone indicates the importance of this matter in its eyes and reflects a determination to prevent the departure of American citizens on any available grounds, however open to question its methods and legal reasoning may prove to be. The Soviet Government may now have discounted the adverse effect upon world public opinion that would probably follow appropriate publicity highlighting its actions which, in a limited number of cases, appears to be in direct contravention of accepted principles of international law and custom bearing upon the treatment of citizens of friendly powers and, in the majority of cases involving dual nationals, flouts the principles outlined in Articles 13 and 15 of the recently adopted Declaration of Human Rights.6 There is, however, some evidence for believing that the Soviets are conscious of and even extremely sensitive to the propaganda aspects of this question and are taking steps to handle the situation in their own characteristic manner. The impression inevitably left by correspondence and conversation with would-be repatriates, and perhaps adequately conveyed by the material accompanying this despatch, is that these people would represent an even more damaging propaganda potential outside the Soviet Union than within its borders where they can be rigidly controlled. Most of them are bitterly anti-Soviet and have felt the weight of the Soviet system far more than the average citizen of the U.S.S.R. In Soviet eyes they probably represent a security as well as a propaganda risk so far as the two may be dissociated, since the majority of them come from areas at present closed to foreign travel.

[Page 554]

The Soviet officials responsible for the solution of this problem appear caught in a dilemma of their own creation. Either they must present the West with further propaganda opportunities of the nature created by the wives question or they must accept the consequences of discharging a flood of new Kravchenkos7 and Kasenkinas8 upon the free world. The outlines of the solution as described in detail above appear fairly clear: to avoid the latter alternative by detaining all but an insignificant number of the claimants to foreign citizenship and to minimize the effects of the former by the broadest possible interpretation of Soviet citizenship law, by inducing claimants through every imaginable kind of pressure to abandon their claims to American nationality or, in certain cases of exclusive American citizenship, to apply for naturalization as citizens of the U.S.S.R. The few who are to be released, while they will probably be persons with clearly valid claims to exclusive American citizenship, will not necessarily be those with the most ironclad legal cases but will probably be chosen with an eye at least as much to security and propaganda considerations as to legalities. Any American charges will then be met by the assertion that bona fide claimants are being released and that the rest are either Soviet citizens with fraudulent claims, or have reconsidered after the experience of life in the Soviet Union and no longer desire to return to the United States.

A final factor in the Soviet evaluation of its problem in this area of United States-U.S.S.R. relations may well be the Kremlin’s supposition that the Embassy is powerless in these matters and that the American Government does not consider the situation of enough import to warrant strong and positive action. This consideration is perhaps bolstered by knowledge of the American policy regarding the protection of dual nationals and this knowledge is now being shared by an increasing number of citizens residing in the Soviet Union.

Within the past several months, the Embassy has been obliged, in a growing number of cases, to confess its helplessness to protect claimants and has felt impelled to advise them, in instances where the citizen involved is threatened with arrest and deportation to Siberia or other punitive action, not to persist in asserting his or her claim to American citizenship. In appropriate cases, it has informed citizens that acceptance of a Soviet passport, on the grounds that they [Page 555] have already acquired Soviet citizenship by automatic action of Soviet decree, will not expatriate them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Recommendations:

The Embassy recognizes that few countermeasures are available to the Government as means of compelling the Kremlin to alter its conduct in these matters. At the moment, the main approach which appears to be envisaged involves Departmental representations to the Soviet Ambassador in Washington9 concerning American citizens who either, a) despite their Soviet documentation as stateless persons or foreigners, have been unable to obtain Soviet exit visas or who, b) although until recently documented as individuals not possessing Soviet citizenship, have now been declared citizens of the U.S.S.R. by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on grounds which the Embassy considers illogical and arbitrary.

The Embassy notes, however, that even if this approach is successful, it would be of assistance to an extremely limited number of citizens. The Department may find the Soviet Government’s reaction to the Embassy’s approach regarding the question of certain American citizens now detained at forced labor in the U.S.S.R. of assistance in evaluating possible means to meet the problem of repatriating at least some of the remaining American citizens in the U.S.S.R., including the 21 children separated from parents in the United States. At the moment, of course, it is impossible to gauge the Soviet reaction to the initial American approach concerning this matter in Berlin and the Embassy concurs in the opinion of the Department that, until it is determined whether a reciprocal exchange can be achieved on the limited basis now envisioned, it is not desirable or necessary to formulate a definitive conclusion on the question of whether the voluntary repatriation of non-criminal displaced persons should be placed on an exchange basis.10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If the attitude of the Soviet Government toward the American approaches mentioned above proves unsatisfactory, the Embassy would recommend that the Department give urgent consideration to devising appropriate means of acquainting the American public with the situation confronting their Government and Embassy in this particular area of United States-Soviet relations.11 At the very least, an official press [Page 556] release concerning this matter, if the Department deems such means advisable, would be of immediate value in making clear to interested parties in the United States the unpalatable but fundamental fact that the representatives of their Government in Moscow are, for all practical purposes, helpless to assist American citizens in the U.S.S.R. and that the sole responsibility for the present plight of their loved ones rests with the Soviet Government. It seems to the Embassy, moreover, that such an announcement, if appropriately documented and publicized, would have an importance far greater than that of helping to meet the particular situation outlined in the preceding sentence. Above all, it would lay at rest the fiction that the Embassy in Moscow is effectively conducting normal consular functions and would assist in dispelling the myth, so assiduously cultivated by the Kremlin, that residents of the U.S.S.R. are living in a perfect society where the problem of the maintenance of human rights has been completely solved.12

In the present world struggle for men’s faith and allegiance, free governments would seem extremely ill-advised to ignore such fictions and to fail to seize every opportunity to prove, in terms and on issues so fundamentally “human” that individuals everywhere can understand them, the basic truth that the Soviet dictatorship is as ruthlessly destructive of personal liberties as any known to history and that its repeated protestations concerning the resolution of all conflicting interests between the individual and the state in the U.S.S.R. is as over-weaning a “big lie” as ever emanated from Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

  1. Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. iv, p. 923.
  2. Not printed. This despatch contained additional citizenship briefs and lengthy descriptions of instances on American citizens who were unable to leave the Soviet Union, supplemental to despatch 718.
  3. None printed.
  4. Many annotations contained in this despatch, some of considerable length, which listed references to earlier illustrative or supporting documents, or which included further details or evidence, have not been here reproduced.
  5. A footnote here in the original despatch stated in part: “It is, of course, impossible for the Embassy to determine whether this particular tactic is inspired by explicit instructions from the MVD or whether it reflects a combination of uncoordinated local zealotry plus inefficiency in the Soviet mail service. In this particular matter, the Embassy is inclined to believe the latter supposition is nearer the truth.”
  6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948, by 48 votes with 8 abstentions (including the Soviet Union). See United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Third Session, Part I, Plenary Meetings, p. 933. The text is also printed in the Department of State Bulletin, December 19, 1948, p. 752. For documentation on the Human Rights question at the General Assembly session in Paris, see Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. i, Part 1, pp. 289 ff.
  7. For documentation on the attempts by the government of the Soviet Union to obtain the deportation of Viktor Andreyevich Kravchenko from the United States, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iv, pp. 12241241, and ibid., 1945, vol. v, pp. 11311138.
  8. Mrs. Oksana Stepanovna Kasenkina was a teacher in the special school for Soviet children maintained in New York City. For documentation concerned with her escape and the reciprocal closure of the Consulates General of the United States and the Soviet Union, see ibid., 1948, vol. iv, pp. 1024 ff.
  9. Alexander Semenovich Panyushkin.
  10. See telegram 1318 from Moscow on July 14, 1948; instruction 122 to Moscow on July 30; despatch 718 from Moscow on October 4; and telegram 1411 to Moscow on December 21, in Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. iv, pp. 901, 906, 923, and 942, respectively.
  11. See the “Information concerning Soviet Exit Visas” enclosed in despatch No. 178 from Moscow on February 10, 1948, ibid., p. 806.
  12. See an article on “United Nations Action on Human Rights in 1948” by James Simsarian in Department of State Bulletin, January 2, 1949, pp. 18–23, especially the passage on the prevention of Soviet spouses of foreign citizens to leave the Soviet Union on p. 22.

    The Embassy in this despatch called attention to the speech made on December 10, 1948, before the United Nations General Assembly on the draft Declaration of Human Rights by Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, at that time first Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Delegation of the Soviet Union to the General Assembly. See GA (III/1), Plenary, pp. 923–929.