Sunday, 20 June

At 5.00 p.m. the Section Chief of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to give me Molotov’s reply letter and also gave me the reply telegram from Stalin to the Generalissimo. The main content of the telegram was that he wanted to say thank you to the Generalissimo. Besides this Stalin also pointed out that Germany was the ultimate enemy, but he believed it would soon be defeated. He didn’t mention Japan, but he also didn’t mention Italy. It seemed that he was very reserved and had chosen his words very carefully. I immediately translated it and sent it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for forwarding to the Generalissimo.