AMERICA AND RUSSIA

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21178, 30 July 1940, Page 6

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

AGREEMENT NOT FAVOURED PROBLEMS IN FAR EAST (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) NEW YORK, July 29 The proposal of the Foreign Policy Association, the leading American study group on foreign affairs, that the United States should solve its critical problems in the Far East by negotiating an agreement with Russia, has had a mixed reception. Officially, the suggestion has been received coldly, the opinion in Government circles being that the association has no knowledge of the background of Russo-American relations, and does not envisage the true nature of the problem. The official viewpoint in Washington is approximately as follows: Large sections of the American public did not desire the re-establish-ment of Russo-American relations. These relations were re-established because they were expected materially to benefit American trade. But, although Russia fulfilled her minimum guarantees in that respect, trade hopes were not fulfilled. Thereafter, Russo-American relations deteriorated because of an inability to adjust the outstanding debt question and the continuation of Soviet propaganda activities in the United States, in spite of the Soviet’s assurances that they would not occur. The deterioration continued when President Roosevelt bitterly attacked the Soviet as a dictatorship on February 10, and when the embargo on the export of aeroplanes to Russia was imposed during the attack on Finland. Officials contend that the position in the Far East is not so desperate as to justify “a piece of unvarnished opportunism” such as a RussoAmerican agreement.