124.60M/21: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 11—3:28 p.m.]
1001. I have just received a formal note from Molotov dated August 11th, which after citing the fact of the admission of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet Union as component parts thereof having all the rights and obligations ensuing from their new status,15 stated [Page 417] that direct diplomatic relations between those states and other states have in consequence ceased.
The note then states that
“The Soviet Government therefore expects that the missions of the United States of America in Kaunas, Riga, and Tallinn will complete the liquidation of their affairs by August 25th, 1940. Likewise, the exequaturs which were issued by the former Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian Governments to foreign consuls, lose their validity; and these consuls are to liquidate their consular offices by the same date.
“Furthermore the diplomatic and consular missions of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in other states cease to operate, and transfer their functions, as well as their archives and property, to the appropriate plenipotentiary representatives or consulates of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
I shall appreciate instructions as to the reply to be made to this communication.
Repeat to Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn.
- See despatch No. 726, September 4, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, regarding the law of August 7, 1940, adopted by the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union making changes in the Constitution of the Soviet Union in consequence of the admission of new Soviet Socialist Republics, vol. iii, p. 216.↩