CREDIT: “Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill on portico of Russian Embassy in Teheran, during conference--Nov. 28 - Dec. 1, 1943,” 1943. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number LC-USZ62-32833.

February 18, 1942 telegram from Stalin to Roosevelt

This is to acknowledge receipt of yours of February 13. I should like first of all to point out that I share your conviction that the efforts of the new U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Admiral Standley, whom you hold in such high esteem, to bring our two countries still closer together, will be crowned with success.

Your decision, Mr President, to grant the Government of the U.S.S.R. another $1,000,000,000 under the Lend-Lease Act5 on the same terms as the first $1,000,000,000, is accepted by the Soviet Government with sincere gratitude. With reference to the matter raised by you I would like to say that, in order not to delay decision, the Soviet Government will not at the moment raise the matter of revising the terms for the second $1,000,000,000 to be granted to the Soviet Union nor call for taking due account of the extreme strain placed on the U.S.S.R. by the war against our common foe. At the same time I fully agree with you and hope that later we shall jointly fix the moment when it will be mutually desirable to revise the financial agreements now being concluded, in order to take special account of the circumstances pointed out above.

I take this opportunity to draw your attention to the fact that in using the loan extended to the U.S.S.R. the appropriate Soviet agencies are encountering great difficulties as far as shipping the munitions and materials purchased in the U.S.A. is concerned. In these circumstances we think that the most useful system is the one effectively used in shipping munitions from Britain to Archangel, a system not introduced so far with regard to supplies from the U.S.A. In keeping with this system the British military authorities supplying the munitions and materials select the ships, supervise their loading in harbour and convoying to the ports of destination. The Soviet Government would be most grateful if the same system of delivering munitions and convoying the ships to Soviet harbours were adopted by the U.S. Government.

Yours very sincerely,

J. Stalin

Read more of Stalin’s wartime telegrams.