123 Lewis, James W./74: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:50 p.m.]
333. In my last conversation with Molotov I raised the question of exit visas for the Soviet wives47 of Lewis and Raymond48 and pointed [Page 515] out that their applications have been pending for 6 months. Molotov replied that this was a matter for the Supreme Soviet and indicated that the Foreign Office was not interested in the matter. I understand that the British Ambassador49 received a similar reply to his representations on behalf of the Soviet wives of members of his staff.
Both Raymond and Lewis are anxious that the children their wives are expecting be born outside the Soviet Union. The only further action short of some kind of retaliation which it would appear possible for me to take here would be to appeal to Kalinin or Stalin. I should be glad to receive any instructions which the Department may care to give me in the premises.50
- Persistent efforts to gain exit visas for Soviet spouses of American citizens had attained some successful results during 1941; see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 931–992, passim. For references to this long-standing problem before 1941, see ibid., p. 931, footnote 15.↩
- James W. Lewis and Ellsworth L. Raymond, clerks at the American Embassy in the Soviet Union.↩
- Sir Archibald Clark Kerr.↩
- Mrs. Alexandra P. V. Lewis renounced Soviet citizenship on May 15, and was ordered to leave the Soviet Union before June 16. The Department authorized by telegram of June 1 that Lewis, his wife, and child should proceed to Tehran as soon as possible. They departed by airplane on June 7.↩