740.0011 European War 1939/4635: Telegram
The Minister in Latvia (Wiley) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:42 p.m.]
189. The person mentioned in despatch No. 630, January 19,65 tells me that he has reliable information that the Soviet Government has decided on incorporating the Baltic States and that Molotov has said that the new Lithuanian Parliament will have only one question to decide namely Anschluss. The informant added that Russia would [Page 388] probably initiate matters with Lithuania in order to study the German reaction.
He also told me that the new Latvian Government has been formed. It is made up of Latvian Communists who are shortly arriving from Russia. He suggested that it would be along the lines of the Terijoki government67 which was to have been set up in Finland.
- Despatch not printed; the reference is presumably to Henry A. Hobson, Commercial Secretary and Consul in the British Legation in Latvia.↩
- The puppet, Communist Soviet government of the “Democratic Republic of Finland”, set up on December 1, 1939, in the town of Terijoki under the nominal leadership of Otto W. Kuusinen.↩