740.00119 Control (Bulgaria)/4–2745: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6 p.m.]
233. Remytel 227, April 26, 1 a.m. I have sent the following letter to General Biryusov on the subject of refusal to approve entry of clerks Fay and Downs.
I have not failed to inform my Government by telegram of the decision communicated to me this morning through Colonel Tviridov’s office, that “the Soviet High Command does not sanction the entry into Bulgaria of clerks Marie Fay and Erma [Ednamay] Downs” who for some time now (6 weeks in fact, as I first requested clearance for them in a letter to Minister Lavrishchev dated March 15) have been waiting in Caserta to join the staff of the United States Mission in Bulgaria, to which they have been detailed by the Department of State.
In my telegram of this morning I made it clear to the Department of State that the attitude of the Russian military authorities here in matters of operational interest to the United States Mission in Bulgaria is unsatisfactory. I pointed out the anomaly of our ally making it impossible for the Mission to fulfill the functions for which it was established. I requested such step as may be necessary to correct this unsatisfactory state of affairs be taken at Moscow where no doubt the anomaly of the decision of the Russian military authorities will be readily understood.
In the above connection I believe that it will be of interest to you to know that January of this year a similar unsatisfactory state of affairs developed in Rumania, between our Mission there and the Russian military authorities in that country, and that in replying to a protest by the Department of State to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Moscow, R. [Mr.] Vyshinski stated that “it goes without saying that no obstacles are to be put in the way of entry into Rumania of persons appointed to the United States Mission in Bucharest.”