740.00119 European War 1939/2702: Telegram
The Chargé in Finland (Gullion) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:09 p.m.]
503. Stockholm please transmit code text this message to Department as my 503 Niact,35 US Urgent. Not otherwise necessarily Niact for Stockholm.
In view of inability to get anything but evasive answers on Ribbentrop’s presence36 I called on highest authority who confirmed his visit and said that he came on his own initiative without Finnish invitation. As to Finland’s course of action he claims that this is undecided. Project described in my secret 491, June 22,37 said not to have materialized because soundings resulted in terms amounting to capitulation.38 My impression is that within a very short time Finland will reaffirm its solidarity with Germany. I did not fail to indicate to Foreign Minister impression this would cause in United States. I explained to him, however, that I was speaking without instructions.
Repeated to Stockholm as my 151.
- Night action.↩
- The Chargé had reported in telegram 502, that day, that German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop arrived in Helsinki on June 23. The actual arrival date was later reported as June 22; see telegram 515, June 27, from Helsinki, p. 605.↩
- Not printed; it informed the Department that a proposed new Finnish Government would undertake to end immediately Finland’s co-belligerency with Germany, and that soundings to this effect had already been made with the Russians in Stockholm (740.00119EW1939/2695).↩
- The response of the Soviet Government to the eleventh-hour Finnish overture was that Finland must “capitulate”. Some details of these final, unsuccessful Finnish-Soviet exchanges can be found in despatch 3630, July 1, 1944, from Stockholm, not printed. (740.0019EW/7–144)↩