Office of the Historian

741.61/919: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, February 5, 1941—7 p.m.
[Received 7:52 p.m.]

227. My No. 5, January 2, 3 p.m. I have been informed by the British Ambassador that probably as a result of his policy of aloofness and recent remarks made by him to Vishinski8 regarding Molotov’s9 continued failure to receive him, he was summoned to the Kremlin by Molotov a few days ago.

At the interview Molotov not only had nothing to say to the Ambassador but in response to the latter’s efforts to initiate a general conversation on political subjects, Molotov pointedly declined to say anything.

Steinhardt
  1. Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.↩
  2. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.↩