Office of the Historian

861.404/5–1349

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Hickerson)

secret
[Washington,] May 13, 1949.

Discussion:

The Reverend John O. A. Brassard, A. A., who was appointed as clergyman for the American colony at Moscow, has already waited more than three months for the Soviet Embassy to issue him an entry visa to the USSR.

The agreements reached between The President and the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, in connection with the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries (Roosevelt-Litvinov agreements), provide that an American clergyman shall be permitted to minister to the spiritual needs of the American colony at Moscow.

As a result of the failure of the Soviet Government to issue a visa to Father Brassard, the American colony has been without the services of a clergyman for more than three months.

Recommendation:

It is recommended that you1 discuss the matter of Father Brassard’s visa application with the Soviet Ambassador and inform him of the seriousness with which this Government views the failure of the Soviet [Page 613] Government to implement the agreements reached in 1933. An appropriate occasion for this discussion might arise when you call in the Soviet Ambassador in connection with the matter of the return of naval craft to the United States as recommended in the memorandum of May 9, 1949 from E—Mr. Thorp.2

  1. This memorandum was directed to the Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson.↩
  2. For the memorandum of May 9 by the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Willard L. Thorp, see p. 694. In regard to the efforts being made to reach a lend, lease settlement agreement with the Soviet Union, see pp. 689 ff. The Secretary of State was unable to see the Ambassador of the Soviet Union, Alexander Semenovich Panyushkin, at a meeting at noon on May 25; hut the Acting Secretary of State James E. Webb, who did see the Ambassador, raised the question of the failure of the receipt of a visa by Father Brassard. Ambassador Panyushkin replied that “he had been absent for some time at the General Assembly [of the United Nations] in New York, but said he would at once look into the matter”↩