741.61/6–146: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State
priority
[Received June 1—9:30 a.m.]
1711. Personal for Secretary Byrnes and Matthews. Yesterday the British Ambassador1 showed me a transcript of his talk with Stalin. Most of the discussion centered on the Paris Conference.2 Stalin implied again that Soviet good intentions were nullified by an Anglo-American bloc. He commented that the French also seemed to [Page 759] regard the Soviet Union as an enemy. To this Peterson replied that his own impression was that if the Soviet representatives had been absent from the Paris Conference the three other powers would have been able to reach an agreement, Stalin said that on the contrary, had they been absent the three Western Powers would have quarrelled among themselves. He concluded with a remark to the effect that if it became necessary for the Soviet Union to withdraw from the Council of Foreign Ministers it would be demonstrated that this condition, id est, failure to agree on the part of the Western Powers, would prevail.
Stalin deprecated to a certain extent press and publicity attacks against Great Britain, but said the British had brought this on themselves by their unreasoning opposition to the Soviet Union. He also mentioned again Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri, but he did not criticize or attack the US in any way. In this respect his attitude was very different than at the time of my conversation with him when many of his remarks were devoted to attacks against the British.
Peterson attempted to point out to Stalin that Bevin should not be regarded as fundamentally anti-Soviet. Bevin, he said, shared many of the social aspirations endorsed by USSR. Stalin dismissed these explanations with statement that personalities had nothing to do with Soviet attitude. USSR considered that there were in UK and USA certain forces historically hostile to USSR and that no matter who occupied position now held by Bevin, that person would be an implement wielded by those forces. This interpretation is entirely consistent with Soviet theory and highlights the inutility of approaching USSR on matters of policy in terms of personalities.
With regard to Soviet Mediterranean ambitions Peterson assured Stalin that Britain would welcome Soviet naval visits to Mediterranean either through Straits or Gibraltar. With his typical facility for reducing a problem to simplest elements Stalin asked what good it would do for Red Navy to sail into Mediterranean if it had no place to go.
Molotov was present throughout conversation but did not open his mouth.
- Sir Maurice Drummond Peterson.↩
- Council of Foreign Ministers, Second Session, First Part, at Paris between April 25 and May 16, 1946. For documentation, see vol. ii, pp. 88 ff.↩