ANXTARCTICA                          911'

progress of any plans made by the Department of Defense for an
Antarctic operation.
   Sincerely yours,                                     JAMEs E. WVEBB


702.022/6-850.
   The Embassy of the Soviet Union to the :Department of State1

                             MEMORANDUM

   Since the Autumn of 1948 in a 5number of statements of representa-
tives of the Ministries of Foreign, Affairs of the United States, Great

Britain, and several other countriesi as well as in articles of the-world
press, there7has been mention of conversations regarding Antarctica
which were begun on the initiative of the State Department of the
USA, between the United States of America, Great Britain, France,
Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Chile. From           these
statements of representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of
several nations and from the press articles, it appears that the purpose
of the conversations is to decide the question of the regime of the
Antarctic.
   The Government of the USSR cannot agree that such a question as
 that of the regime of the Antarctic be decided without its participa-

   The source text is a translation prepared in the Office of Eastern European
 Affairs. The Russian-language original was handed to Under Secretary of
State
 James E. Webb by Soviet Charge Vladimir Ivanovich Bazykin during a brief
call
 at the Department of State on June 9. The memorandum of conversation record-
 ing the call, not printed, indicated that there was no substantive discussion
of the
 Soviet memorandum, but the Under Secretary of State told Charge Bazykin
that
 it would be given the-most careful consideration (702.022/6-850). An identical
 memorandum was also delivered to the United Kingdom, French, Norwegian,
 Australian, New Zealand, and Argentine Governments, and the text was printed
 in the Soviet newspapers Pravda and Izvestiya on June 10.
   On June 9 officials of the Department of State apprised representatives
of the
press of the receipt of this communication from the Soviet Embassy which
Was
described as expressing the desire of. the US SR to be consulted in any interna-
tional discussion of Antarctica but not putting forward any territorial claims.
The officials explained that the communication was being studied but would
not
be made public by the Department of State. The officials recalled that in
194&
the United States had informally approached the Governments of Argentina,
Austfralia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom re-
garding the possibility of reaching an agreement on the territorial problems
of
Antarctica. The officials explained that no action had been taken in the
matter,
and no international conference was scheduled. A summary of the information
made available by the officials of the Department of State was transmitted
to
overseas missions in Department of State Wireless Bulletin (the official
news
service of the Department of State, prepared by the Division of International
Press and Publications and transmitted daily by radio to various foreign
service
posts abroad) No. 135, June 9, 1950.
  In the days immediately following. receipt of this Soviet memorandum, copies
  of the translation printed here were made available to' the British, French,
Nor-
wegian, Australian, New Zealand, and Chilean Embassies in Washington by the
Department :of State. *:                 ,   .    ..