Tuesday, 17 August

At noon, I went to see the American Ambassador Standley. He said as follows. 1) He said that the American-Soviet relationship is quite good, probably because of the Soviet army’s recent victory. Stalin seemed quite happy, and didn’t make a fuss about opening the second war zone. Standley expected that Stalin would show his discontent about not having a second war zone, instead he was surprised that Stalin was quite calm about the matter. 2) Stalin has gone to the Front lines again. 3) The Soviet Union felt that if we couldn’t give the German army a big blow, it couldn’t be considered as the second zone. This is reasonable. But Britain and the United States had to be worried about what would happen if the operation went wrong, because it would greatly affect the future. He himself didn’t have any news about this, but he thought that soon the British and the American armies would have a bigger military operation. If this type of operation were to have some success, it might help to console the Soviet’s dissatisfaction. However, if the second war zone was still not opened before spring next year, the American-Soviet future would be strained. 4) As to the post-war issues, Churchill and Roosevelt repeatedly asked to have a meeting with Stalin to discuss these, but Stalin could not leave the Soviet Union because of the tenseness of military affairs but if the German army retreated a bit further, this type of meeting might be possible. 5) Stalin talked to him personally, saying that after the war with Germany he was quite willing to cooperate with Britain, the United States and China.  His words were sincere and honest. 6) This time, Maisky was recalled to become the Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs, and Litvinov has been recalled to the country. These changes are probably in preparation for post-war settlement. Whether Litvinov will go back to the United States as Ambassador or not, he said he hasn’t heard. Based on the Soviet Union’s attitude at the World Food Summit, one can tell that they want to cooperate with other countries after the war. 7) The Soviet Union are still worried about the Japanese, so when they received an airplane in Alaska from Japan and the United States asked them to take a diplomat, the Soviet Union didn’t dare agree. 8) The Soviet Union hates Japan very much. Stalin told him that Japan was unreliable and Japan was its enemy. So after the war with Germany the Soviet Union was very likely to take part in the war against Japan. He asked about Xinjiang and matters concerning the Chinese Communist Party. I told him briefly about it.