740.0011 Pacific War/1507: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 1—9:26 a.m.]
1. Reference my telegram No. 2123, December 31.94 In view of the prominence given by Pravda to Zaslavski’s article, and inasmuch [as] whatever the reason may have been for its publication, the one hypothesis which could be rejected with full confidence was that it merely represented the views of a casual writer, it was my considered opinion that the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs should be apprised immediately of the reaction to it on the part of this Embassy. Accordingly I called on Lozovski95 last night and made the following verbatim statement to him:
“Under present circumstances, I am astonished that such an article, which is contemptuous and offensive in tone, should have been permitted to appear in a Soviet newspaper. I regard it as my duty to express my emphatic objection to the article and to protest against its publication.”
Lozovski replied that inasmuch as the American newspapers carry every day articles which are offensive to the Soviet Union and its leader, against which neither the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs nor the Soviet Embassy in Washington has ever protested, he could not accept my protest. To this I rejoined that I regretted that he should adopt this attitude, which I would report to my Government, and that in so far as any articles which may have appeared in the American press are concerned, I need hardly point out to him the difference between the uncontrolled American press and the totally controlled Soviet press which furthermore is now subjected to the [Page 768] additional censorship imposed by the war and that I must reiterate my protest.96
In the general conversation which followed I also remarked that it had been reported to me that Zaslavski’s articles in the press represent the views of Narkomindel.97 Lozovski stated that this is incorrect. He also remarked that the article in question was not directed against the United States but against the theory of “The open city”. I stated that anyone presuming to write an article of this character at this time could hardly be unaware of the fact that it is the United States Army under the command of General MacArthur that is entrusted with the defense of Manila and that I therefore regarded the article as derogatory to our armed forces. It has been suggested to me that the publication of this article may have been for the purpose of stimulating us to more decisive action in the Pacific, or that it may reflect the growing confidence or even smugness of the Soviet Government resulting from its current successes against the Germans. A third possibility may be that the article is designed to mollify Japan.98
- Not printed; it quoted an article in Pravda entitled “Pétain Methods in the Philippines” by D. Zaslavski, who was very criical of the policy to declare Manila an open city (740.00116 Pacific War/6).↩
- Solomon A. Lozovski. Soviet Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs.↩
- In telegram No. 3, January 2, 1942, 8 p.m., the Department cabled its full approval to Mr. Thurston for his action.↩
- Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs.↩
- In his telegram No. 59, January 19, 1942, 1 p.m., Mr. Thurston reported to the Department the substance of an article in the January 17 issue of Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), organ of the Defense Ministry. Mr. Thurston stated: “The tone of this article, as well as that of other recent Soviet press references to the war in the East, lead to the inference that they are to some degree at least designed to offset Zaslavski’s article in Pravda of December 30.” (740.0011 Pacific War/1707)↩