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The Davies Mission and United States-Soviet Relations, 1937–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Richard H. Ullman
Richard H. Ullman
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

In the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, N.Y., resting on the open shelves along with other books from the President's personal collection, is a copy of Joseph E. Davies' Mission to Moscow. As was his custom, FDR wrote a short comment in the book after reading it. Inside the front cover, under the glowing dedication to him by the author, the President scratched four words: “This book will last.”

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , January 1957 , pp. 220 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1957

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References

1 Interview with Henry Shapiro, Russian Research Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., January 25, 1955.

2 Langer, William L. and Everett Gleason, S., The Undeclared War, New York, 1953, pp. 537–39.Google Scholar

3 Christian Science Monitor, July 1, 1941.

4 Langer, and Gleason, , op. cit., p. 540.Google Scholar

5 Davis, Forest and Lindley, Ernest K., How War Came, New York, 1942, p. 251.Google Scholar

6 Letter to the author from Joseph E. Davies, Washington, D.C., March 3, 1955.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 For an extremely able survey of United States-Soviet relations during the years immediately before and after recognition, see Browder, Robert P., The Origins of Soviet-American Diplomacy, Princeton, N.J., 1953.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Hull, Cordell, Memoirs, New York, 1948, p. 306.Google Scholar

11 The texts of the notes exchanged are printed in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers: The Soviet Union, 1933–1939, Washington, D.C., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1952, pp. 340–42.Google Scholar (Cited hereafter as Soviet Union, 1933–1939.)

12 Henderson to Hull, August 18, 1936, ibid., pp. 299–300.

13 Henderson to Hull, August 27, 1936, ibid., p. 300.

14 Ibid., p. 301.

15 Henderson to Hull, September 1, 1936, ibid., p. 303.

16 Davies, Joseph E., Mission to Moscow, New York, 1941, p. xi.Google Scholar (This and subsequent references are to the 12th printing.)

17 New York Times, January 16, 1937.

18 Davies, , op. cit., p. xi.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. xvi.

20 Davies to Hull, January 25, 1937, ibid., pp. 26–27. Mission to Moscow contains many official despatches not included in Soviet Union, 1933–1939.

21 Diary entries, December 15, 1936, and January 2, 1937, in Davies, , op. cit., pp. 4 and 6.Google Scholar

22 The four were Pyatakov, former Assistant Commissar for Heavy Industry; Sokolnikov, Commissar for Timber; Serebryokov, Assistant Commissar for Communications; and Pravda editor Karl Radek.

23 There is no special significance in the fact that Kennan's memorandum was despatched to the Department. It is common diplomatic practice for a Chief of Mission to transmit information from or opinions of subordinates in their original form as memoranda, thus identifying the source and also saving the tedious labor of redrafting the material into standard despatch form to be signed by the Ambassador. It is highly unusual, however, for both the Ambassador and a subordinate to submit reports on the same event, unless the Chief of Mission wants to call the attention of the Department to conflicting views. Also it is an interesting commentary on the two reports that Kennan's was selected over Davies' for inclusion in Soviet Union, 1933–1939 (pp. 362–69), whereas Davies' is available only in Mission to Moscow (pp. 32–46).

24 Davies to Hull, February 17, 1937, in Davies, , op. cit., p. 43.Google Scholar

25 Letter to Stephen Early, February 10, 1937, ibid., p. 67.

26 Kennan memorandum, February 13, 1937, in Soviet Union, 1931–1939, pp. 363–64.

27 Davies to Hull, February 17, 1937, in Davies, , op. cit., p. 46.Google Scholar

28 Hull to Davies, July 1, 1937, in Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 409–11.

29 Davies to Hull, July 6, 1937, ibid., p. 413.

30 Ibid.

31 Hull to Davies, July 8, 1937, ibid., p. 414.

32 Davies, , op. cit., p. 665.Google Scholar

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., p. 277.

35 See Fainsod, Merle, How Russia Is Ruled, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, p. 282.Google Scholar

36 Davies, , op. cit., p. 634.Google Scholar Schulenburg, the German Ambassador to Moscow, noted that these youth organizations “serve the purpose of creating a reliable new generation.” Despatch of November 18, 1938, in Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945: From the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, Washington, D.C., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1949 and continuing, Series D., III, p. 612. (Cited hereafter as German Documents.)

37 Davies, , op. cit., p. 23.Google Scholar

38 Bohlen memorandum, February 2, 1938, in Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 510.

39 Ibid., p. 509n.

40 Davies to Hull, August 10, 1937, ibid., pp. 445–46.

41 Davies to Hull, June 6, 1938, ibid., p. 555.

42 See, for example, Davies, , op. cit., pp. 27 and 365.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., pp. 67 and 263.

44 Ibid., p. 433.

45 Letter to daughter, June 8, 1938, ibid., pp. 355–56.

46 Ibid., p. 357.

47 Ibid., pp. 356–57.

48 Davies to Hull, June 6, 1938, in Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 560.

49 Ibid., p. 561.

50 Ibid., p. 557.

51 Davies, , op. cit., p. 434.Google Scholar

52 Unpublished despatch quoted in Langer, William L. and Everett Gleason, S., The Challenge to Isolation, New York, 1952, p. 98.Google Scholar

53 Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939, 1, Washington, D.C., U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1956, p. 234.Google Scholar

54 Hull to Davies, April 18, 1939, ibid., p. 236.

55 Davies to Hull, Brussels, October 12, 1939, in Davies, , op. cit., p. 464.Google Scholar

56 See Coulondre's, book, De Staline à Hitler, Paris, 1950Google Scholar; and Ford, Franklin L. and Schorske, Carl E., “The Voice in the Wilderness: Robert Coulondre,” in Craig, Gordon A. and Gilbert, Felix, eds., The Diplomats, 1919–1939, Princeton, N.J., 1953, pp. 537–55.Google Scholar

57 See Carl E. Schorske, “Two German Ambassadors: Dirksen and Schulenburg,” ibid., pp. 477–5.

58 German Documents, 1, 899.

59 Ford, and Schorske, , op. cit., p. 560.Google Scholar

60 Vereker to Viscount Halifax, May 16, 1938, in Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, edited by E. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler, London, H. M. Stationery Office, 1949, 3rd Series, 1, p. 307. (Cited hereafter as British Documents.)

61 Wehrmacht Academy address, November 25, 1937, in German Documents, 1, p. 899.

62 Report of a conversation with Coulondre, Vereker to Halifax, May 16, 1938, in British Documents, 1, p. 304.

63 Davies, , op. cit., pp. 276 and 280.Google Scholar

64 Henderson, to Hull, , June 13, 1937, in Soviet Union, 1933–1939, pp. 380–81.Google Scholar

65 Wehrmacht Academy address, November 25, 1937, in German Documents, 1, pp. 899–900.

66 Despatch of November 18, 1938, ibid., IV, p. 612.

67 Ford, and Schorske, , op. cit., pp. 559–60.Google Scholar

68 Davies, Joseph E., “How Russia Blasted Hitler's Spy Machine,” American Magazine, CXXXIII, No. 6 (December 1941), p. 112.Google Scholar

69 The British embassy, for instance, estimated that “about 65 per cent, of general officers had been liquidated.” May 16, 1938, in British Documents, 1, p. 306.

70 Ibid.

71 November 18, 1938, in German Documents, IV, p. 613.

72 Ibid., p. 612. The extent of Russian losses in the first two years after the German attack showed that these appraisals were essentially accurate. See also Khruschev's remarks on this subject in his speech on Stalin delivered during the Twentieth Party Congress, in New YorK Times, June 5, 1956.

73 Despatch of May 30, 1938, in German Documents, 11, p. 363.

74 Coulondre, , op. cit., pp. 112–13; my translation.Google Scholar

75 Davies, , op. cit., p. 327.Google Scholar

76 Henderson, to Hull, , in Soviet Union, 1933–1939, p. 515.Google Scholar

77 Hull, , op. cit., p. 306.Google Scholar

78 For an account of Roosevelt's acute distrust of the career Foreign Service, see the introduction to Langer and Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation. Also valuable are the memoirs or collected papers of Hull, Hopkins, Ickes, Morgenthau (Collier's, October 11, 1947), Raymond Moley, Claude G. Bowers and, of course, Davies.

79 Langer, and Gleason, , The Challenge to Isolation, p. 126.Google Scholar