Wednesday, 6 September

Fine

The British broadcast said that as the Soviet Union has declared war upon Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Cabinet met throughout last night and asked the Soviet Union to stop the war. Molotov replied he had to discuss this with Britain and the United States first. At the same time news from Bulgaria said that the German army, in Bulgarian territory, has had conflicts with the Bulgarian army. The Soviet Union made such a move perhaps because it wanted to join the negotiations among Britain, the United States and Bulgaria. With regard to relations between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, the latter could not be a silent onlooker, and yet it could not interfere, so it could only go this way. In this way it could join or even host the conference because the Red Army could arrive in Bulgaria earlier. The move from the Soviet side might be welcomed by Bulgaria, because the negotiations of Bulgaria, Britain and United States could be moved to Moscow and the Red Army could enter Romanian territory, so as to prevent British and American troops joining with Greece or Poland in the Near East or French troops entering Romanian territory.

In Attaché Hu’s report, who accompanied me to Leningrad, there was “The History of the Leningrad Resistance War”. It read well.

At 5.00 p.m. the Belgian Ambassador, Le Ghait, gave a tea party for the entire Diplomatic Corps and Soviet officers at the hotel to celebrate the liberation of the Belgian capital.

At 6.30 the British naval representative Admiral Archer gave a cocktail party at his place.

I studied Russian for two and a half hours in the morning.