Office of the Historian

261.1122/2–2850: Telegram

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

confidential
priority
Moscow, February 28, 1950—11 p. m.

705. Called Foreign Office 10 p. m., by Gromyko who handed me aide-mémoire translation of which contained immediately following telegram1 (Deptel 92, February 12). Beyond stating aide-mémoire is reply to our aide-mémoire December 12, 1949, Gromyko made no comment and meeting lasted less than minute.

Barbour
  1. Not printed. The text of the aide-mémoire of February 28 regarding the continued refusal to grant exit permits to American citizens and spouses of American citizens to leave the Soviet Union is printed in Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1950, pp. 440–441. It was in response to a letter dated October 4, 1949, from Ambassador Kirk to the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Andrey Andreyevich Gromyko, as well as to the aide-mémoire of December 12, 1949. The text of both documents is in ibid., pp. 434–440. See also Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. v, p. 684.↩
  2. Not printed. Ambassador of the Soviet Union Aleksander Semenovich Panyushkin had been handed a copy of the United States aide-mémoire of December 12, 1949, with a request to expedite a reply, on January 18, 1950, as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, March 20, 1950, p. 433. However, in telegram 92 to the Embassy in the Soviet Union on February 1, it was stated that the Ambassador had been handed the copy by Secretary of State Acheson on that afternoon. (261.1122/2–150)↩