Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 2

No. 819

861.413/11–851

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs (Barbour)

confidential

[Washington,] November 8, 1951.

Subject: Situation of American Clergyman at Moscow

Participants:	Mr. Michael Francis Doyle
	Father Wilfred J. Dufault
	Father Leopold Braun
	EE—Mr. Barbour
	EE—Mr. Henry

Mr. Doyle brought Fathers Dufault and Braun in to call on me today to discuss the present status of Father Brassard, American Catholic Priest at Moscow.¹ We discussed many aspects of this problem, including Father Brassard’s present arrangements for holding services, plans for Father Brassard’s replacement, the status of Father Brassard’s attempt to retain control over the Church of St. Louis des Francais, the position of the Latvian Priest who has taken Father Brassard’s place at the church, Soviet attempts to treat Father Brassard as a member of the Embassy staff, possible methods of sending a new altar and tabernacle to Father Brassard, and the present status of French attempts to obtain permission for another French Catholic Priest to go to Moscow and use the Church of St. Louis.²

I also asked Father Dufault and the others whether they wished to accept the funds which Father Brassard desires to transfer to the United States through the Embassy. It was agreed that they would consider this question further and that the Department would take no action in the meantime. The Department will continue to look into the feasibility of arranging a transfer.

It was also agreed that the Department will ask the Embassy for information on the current status of the various aspects of the situation of Father Brassard.³

Mr. Doyle concluded by expressing the hope that it would be possible for the Department to arrange an interview with President Truman for him so that he could inform the President of recent developments in this important church matter included in the Roosevelt–Litvinov agreement. I said that I would bear this matter in mind.⁴

Walworth Barbour

1. This was one of a number of conversations between Doyle and officers of the Department of State during 1951 regarding the situation of Father Brassard. Other conversations were held on February 27, April 27, and August 2. Records of those conversations are in file 861.413. Regarding Father Brassard’s status in the USSR, see also section D of the draft Department of State Policy Statement on the USSR, Document 767.
2. Father Jean Dematha Thomas, the last French Roman Catholic priest to serve in Moscow, had been forced to leave the Soviet Union on September 1, 1950. The French Government had tried unsuccessfully to secure a visa for another French priest to take his place and officiate at the Church of Saint-Louis-des-Francais, the only Roman Catholic Church in Moscow.
3. For the report by the Embassy in Moscow on the status of Father Brassard, see despatch 423 from Moscow, Document 824.
4. There are no indications in Department of State files that a conversation between Doyle and President Truman was arranged. Doyle was presumably referring to the exchange between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, which took place in Washington, November 16, 1933; see Foreign Relations, The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 29–33.