Moscow Embassy Files, Lot F–96
The Chairman of the Soviet Council of People’s Commissars (Stalin) to President Roosevelt 36
I received today your message of September 27.
I share your opinion concerning the desirability of the personal attendance of the Secretary of State, Mr. Hull, at the forthcoming conference of the representatives of the three Governments.
At the same time I must inform you of the great difficulties which would arise in the event of a change in the decision already agreed upon for the selection of Moscow as the meeting place for the forthcoming conference. The situation is that in case the Conference is convened not in Moscow but in England, as you now propose, Mr. V. M. Molotov, whose presence at the Three Power Conference as representative of the Soviet Government I consider indispensable, would not be able to go to the Conference at the intended time. The departure of V. M. Molotov from the Soviet Union, at least in the near future, is impossible since in a short time, as you know, the departure of A. Y. Vyshinski, the First Assistant of V. M. Molotov at the Foreign Office, for Algiers is proposed.
Furthermore, it is well known that the press in the United States and in England has already published widely that the forthcoming meeting will take place in Moscow and the selection of a new place of meeting might give rise to undesirable suspicions.
There are no objections on my part to fixing October 15th as the date of the Conference. It is necessary to suppose that by this time it will be possible to agree finally on the agenda for the Conference between the three Governments.
- This message was forwarded by Mr. Molotov to Charge Gromyko in Washington for transmission to the President. Mr. Molotov sent the text of the message to the American Chargé in Moscow (Hamilton) on October 3, 1943, from which this translation was made.↩