Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, The Soviet Union, Volume I

740.0011 European War 1939/17013: Telegram

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

Kuibyshev (Moscow), December 1, 1941—2 p.m.
[Received December 2—10:23 a.m.]

2001. “Aide-mémoire. To supplement the reply of the Soviet Government given by M. Vyshinski on the 22nd November to the aide-mémoire of the British Ambassador in the Soviet Union dated the 21st November,³⁵ the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs on instruction from the Soviet Government make the following statement:

Sharing to the full as they do the conviction of the British Government that the measures described in the British Ambassador’s aide-mémoire are as much in the interests of the Soviet Union as in those of Great Britain and our other allies, the Soviet Government take note with satisfaction of the declaration of the British Government concerning its readiness to share with the Soviet Union the burdens which will fall upon the Union in connection with the realization of the measures set forth in the aide-mémoire as also of its readiness to assure the supply to the Soviet Union of oil, tanker tonnage, boring and oil processing equipment both during the war and in the post war period.

As regards the conditions for the carrying out of the deliveries mentioned above and for the supply to the Soviet Union of boring and oil processing equipment and tanker tonnage on the basis of the principles set forth in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) of the British Embassy’s aide-mémoire, the Soviet Government, who express their agreement with the above-mentioned principles, consider also that a concrete determination of these conditions should form the subject of an agreement between the Governments of the U.S.S.R. and Great Britain.³⁶

Kuibyshev, November 28, 1941.”

Thurston

[For a memorandum by Mr. Joseph E. Davies of a conversation while entertaining the newly arrived Ambassador of the Soviet Union, Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, at lunch on December 7, 1941, upon learning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, see volume IV, page 730.]

35. See telegram No. 1961, November 21, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, p. 658.
36. The Chargé in the Soviet Union reported in his preceding telegram that the British Ambassador regarded the Soviet request for a formal agreement as embarrassing, but had nevertheless asked for a draft outline of such an agreement for discussion with Soviet authorities (740.0011 European War 1939/17012).