Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union, Volume V

861.404/2–449

The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kohler) to Fëdor Terentyevich Orekhov, Chief of the United States Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union¹

Moscow, February 9, 1949.

My Dear Mr. Orekhov: I refer to my conversations with you on November 5 and December 10, 1948 and January 17, 1949,² on the subject of a Soviet entry visa for the Reverend Louis Dion, who had been designated to replace the Reverend G. Antonio Laberge in Moscow.³

I have now learned that the designation of Father Dion has been withdrawn and substituted by that of the Reverend John Odillon Arthur Brassard,⁴ who submitted an application for an entry visa to the Soviet Embassy in Washington on February 3, 1949. Father Brassard was born at Leominster, Massachusetts on June 24, 1914 and is the bearer of passport No. 5638 issued at Washington on February 3, 1949.

I have also been informed that Father Laberge, who is now in the United States and who holds a reentry visa valid until early March,⁵ will not return to the Soviet Union if Father Brassard receives his entry visa before that time.

I have already explained to you the interest of the Ambassador and of our Government in this matter, arising from the agreement concluded by President Roosevelt and Mr. Litvinov in November 1933.⁶ I therefore again request your kind assistance in expediting a favorable decision in this matter.

I am, my dear Mr. Orekhov,

Very sincerely yours,

Foy D. Kohler

1. A copy of this communication was sent to the Department of State as an enclosure to despatch No. 79 from Moscow on February 10, 1949.
2. None printed.
3. The Reverend George Antonio Laberge had been in the Soviet Union since October 26, 1945; Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. v, p. 1131 and footnote 10. In regard to the fruitless attempt in 1948 to secure an entry visa for the Reverend Louis Ferdinand Dion to replace Father Laberge, see the memorandum of May 14, ibid., 1948, vol. iv, p. 807.
4. Father Brassard was a member of the Assumptionist Order, a religious congregation called Augustinians of the Assumption, founded in 1844.
5. On March 14 in telegram 154, the Department informed the Embassy in Moscow that Father Laberge had been orally notified on February 26 by the Embassy of the Soviet Union in Washington that his reentry visa had been cancelled. The Soviet representative had stated that the visa for Father Brassard would probably be decided in the “near future.” (861.404/2–449)
6. This agreement had been made between President Roosevelt and Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, on November 16, 1933, at the time of the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States; Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 29–33.