857H.01/98
The French Ambassador (Claudel) to the Secretary of State 5
Mr. Secretary of State: By your note of the 21st of December last, relative to the possible adherence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the Spitzbergen Treaty, you were good enough to inform me that the Federal Government would perceive no objection to the adherence of Soviet Russia to the Treaty in question provided that it were well understood that such attitude should not be considered as implying recognition by the Government of the United States of the regime which now prevails in Russia.
My Government, which I did not fail to advise of Your Excellency’s reply, requests me to inquire immediately of Your Excellency whether the Federal Government would be prepared to subscribe to an arrangement drawn up by all the signatory powers, which arrangement would permit the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to accede to the Treaty of February 9, 1920. The text of the future arrangement might be either that which was communicated to the Department of State in 1925, or a text amended in the sense indicated at the time by the Department of State, that is to say, with the substitution, in the sixth line of the preamble, of the words “political organization designated by the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” for the expression “federation designated by the name Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”.6
Accept [etc.]
- No record of a reply to this note has been found in the files.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1925, vol. i, pp. 207–208.↩