740.0011 European War 1939/13964: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6 p.m.]
1497. For the President, the Secretary and the Under Secretary. The British Ambassador told me this afternoon that Mikoyan63 had made so many difficulties in connection with the negotiation of the Soviet-British trade agreement and had been so unreasonable that he had found it necessary to address a note to Molotov requesting that the matter be laid before Stalin. He said that thereafter Molotov had sent for him and following their talk Mikoyan’s obstructive demands had been withdrawn. [In] consequence, he is now hopeful of arriving at an early agreement.
In response to my inquiry Cripps said that the British Military Mission was still unable to obtain any worthwhile information. In commenting on the present military position, he expressed the opinion that the Germans are making progress in the extreme south due to the nature of the terrain and that in the center, although the Germans had made some progress east of Smolensk, the Soviet resistance in that sector appeared to be more effective. He then remarked: “It is today the 14th of August and I reported to London quite some time ago that if we were still in Moscow on the 1st of August it should be regarded as a major victory” and in this connection expressed the view that any possibility of an attempted invasion of Britain by Germany during the month of September was now out of the question.
- Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade of the Soviet Union.↩