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United States Department of State / Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1944. General
(1944)
Application of the principle of unconditional surrender to Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania, pp. 580-613
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SURRENDER TERMS-BULGARIA, HUNGARY, RUMANIA 58t Probably as a result of a disagreement with Molotov over his arbi- trary refusal to allow my plane to take Bill to Cairo, to which I took strenuous objection and which I finally got reversed, the Soviets went to great lengths to placate both of us. As a consequence the NKVD officials came to the Embassy for a midnight discussion and last night three of them dined at the Embassy, as far as I know, unprecedenteI occurrences in any foreign Embassy. In my talk with Molotov alone on December 31 he brought up on his own initiative the question of the meaning of "unconditional sur- render" as applied to the various satellite countries, and asked whether I had any information on our attitude. I explained that I had none except as had been discussed with him by General Donovan in relation to Bulgaria. I said that we had both read with interest the Pravda article on December 27 concerning Bulgaria published since our talk (summarized in our no. 2333, December 27 6) and that we had been struck by the similarity of views expressed in that article with those expressed by General Donovan. In reply to my inquiry, Molotov indi- cated that he was in general agreement with the article. I told him General Donovan was planning to discuss the matter with the President on his return and that in the meantime we had hoped that Molotov might be able to give advice on the subject because of the Soviet diplomatic contact with Bulgaria.7 He said that they did not have sufficient information to reach a conclusion that they were working on it. His only specific suggestion was that they placed great importance on the continuation of the bombing of Bulgaria which they believed would assist the Bulgarians in becoming more sensible. Molotov continued that Marshal Stalin 8 at Tehran 9 had outlined the terms which the Soviet Government were prepared to accord Fin- land 10 and, as he recalled it, the President and Mr. Churchill 11 had expressed no objection to these terms. I said I understood the Swedish Government was pressing the Finns to make a move in this direction, to which Molotov replied that it always took the Finns a long time to make up their minds. Molotov added that they were also studying the question of Roumania and Hungary. " Not printed. 7Alexander Andreyevich Lavrishchev was the regular Minister of the Soviet Union in Bulgaria until September 1944. At the beginning of 1944 he was temporarily away on other duties and the mission was in the hands of Vladimir Georgiyevich Dekanozov, an Assistant People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, who remained until March 1944. 8 Marshal osif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commiissars of the Soviet Union. " For documentation relating to the conference at Tehran, see Foreign Rela- tionw, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, pp. 457 ff. See vol. iII, pp. 556 if. 11British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill.
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