711.61/813
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me this afternoon at his request, and brought up the matter of trade between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Ambassador delivered himself of precisely the same statement which he had made in this regard so frequently in recent conversations, namely, that trade between the two countries was diminishing to the zero point; that Amtorg was now withdrawing its balances from the United States and returning them [Page 734] to Russia; that notwithstanding the favorable attitude I had taken with regard to the development of normal and healthy trade relations between the two countries, interested parties within this Government were blocking every effort on the part of the Soviet Union to purchase industrial equipment, etc., etc.
I replied to the Ambassador that I thought I had made my point of view completely clear in our last talk, namely, that within the limits of our national defense program, and provided the commodities which the Soviet Union desired to purchase in the United States were not commodities which would benefit the German war effort either directly or indirectly, this Government desired and was prepared to cooperate in the enhancement of commercial relations betweeen the two countries. I said there seemed to be little to be gained by the Ambassador and myself sitting down together periodically and making exactly the same statements over again one to the other. I stated that if the Ambassador had any specific complaints to make, I would be glad to hear them and to do what I could to solve the difficulty in a sympathetic and comprehensive way, but that I felt no useful purpose was served by the Ambassador complaining about the fact that our legitimate defense requirements made it impossible for us to let the Soviet Government make use of our factories and our skilled labor for the construction of machine tools and other equipment which the Soviet Government desired but which we required ourselves, or for the Ambassador to complain about the fact that export controls were not set aside so that the Russian Government could freely purchase in the United States and ship to Russia lubricants or strategic materials of vaious kinds which would satisfy the demands of internal consumption in Russia and thus facilitate the replacement of similar commodities exported from Russia to Germany.
To this the Ambassador replied that he was not quarreling with these two points, but that he did complain, and he felt legitimately, about such facts as the receipt by him of communications from American manufacturers telling him that the equipment which the Soviet Government desired to have manufactured in their factories was not required by the American national defense program and yet they were not permitted by the control authorities to receive export licenses for the shipment of such equipment to the Soviet Union, or even to accept orders for the manufacture of such equipment.
I said to the Ambassador that only two night[s] ago Mr. Acheson, Mr. Curtis,36 and I had discussed this whole problem in very great detail and that it was my understanding that Mr. Acheson would within the next few days send for the Ambassador in order to report to him the progress that had been made by the Department of State [Page 735] in clearing up some of these difficulties. I told the Ambassador that as usual he was taking an ultra-pessimistic view of everything. I said that I would be glad to see him after his next interview with Mr. Acheson and I trusted that at that time I would find him imbued with at least a reasonable measure of optimism.
The Ambassador said he would look forward to coming in to see me immediately after his next conference with Mr. Acheson which he hoped would be very soon.
- Charles P. Curtis, Jr., Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State.↩