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  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

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Telegram of the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in the Great Britain I.M. Maisky to the peopleʹs commissariat of foreign affairs of the USSR

May 19, 1939 out of line. Top secret

I told Vansittart this morning our response to his suggestions. * he showed no particular surprise, for he was prepared for such a response to my statement during our last meeting **. Vansittart said that now he would have to get back to work in order to find some acceptable formula.

The French ambassador Corbin had a long conversation with me in which he tried to convince me of the need to meet the British halfway and not insist on a triple pact of mutual assistance in exchange for a guarantee from the Baltic states. I vigorously defended our proposals.

Aras told me that he was today with the constant comrade *** minister Cadogan and on behalf of the Turkish government insisted on an early agreement between Britain and the USSR. Cadogan assured him that the British government wants such an agreement and will make every effort to find a formula acceptable to both parties. The question must be finally decided at the next cabinet meeting in the middle of next week, that is, around May 24‐25.

Plenipotentiary

Avp rf, f. 059, on. 1, p. 300, d. 2077, l. 24.