867.00/3140: Telegram
The Ambassador in Turkey (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 18—2:18 a.m.]
284. Soviet Ambassador called on me this morning to express concern at the course the bomb explosion trial is taking. He said his Government felt that the Soviet defendants were not receiving a fair trial. He added that the attitude of the Soviet press and radio had been prompted by headlines which appeared in the Turkish press over accounts of the proceedings in court. He clearly implied without saying so that relations between the two countries were deteriorating as a result of the trial.
I invited the Ambassador’s attention to the moderate tone of Turkish press to the fact that there was a profound difference between Turkish and Soviet court procedure and that the trial was in its early stages and emphasized the undesirability of permitting the trial to impair relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey.
Repeated to Kuibyshev.