V. Molotov, L. Beria, G. Malenkov, and A. Mikoyan to Cde. Stalin

to Cde. STALIN.

It has become clear from a detailed questioning of Pal’gunov and other TASS officials [that]:

1) In a telegram of the Reuters agency there was a reference to the Paris News Agency, but Pal’gunov distributed a telegram in which this name of the agency was replaced with another name, France Presse. We have summoned a number of TASS officials inasmuch as Pal’gunov gave confused and contradictory explanations of this fact,. During questioning TASS official Zinov’yeva explained the fact of the replacement of the name of the agency by the fact that Reuters allegedly called France Presse the Paris News Agency in their transmissions, that there are many such telegrams in TASS where Reuters is called the France Presse agency and, finally, that in Moscow there is a correspondent of just one French agency, France Presse. But TASS has not yet been able to present a single telegram where the Reuters agency would be called the Paris News Agency.

Pal’gunov now declares that the assertion that the France Presse agency and Paris News Agency were one and the same agency was incorrect.

TASS and the NKID [People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs] Press Department cannot say right now whether the Paris News Agency exists.

We asked Paris and London through NKID and TASS channels about the Paris News Agency, and also about the Agence Edison de Presse, to which Reuters refers in another telegram with approximately the same content.

In connection with what is presented above it is impossible for now to make a decision about deporting the France Presse correspondent. It is not excluded that all these fabrications were cooked up by Reuters itself and that France Presse has nothing to do with it.

We are taking steps rather to end the clarification of the matter in order to make a decision.

2) The conclusions about putting TASS in order ensuing from this matter are presented separately.

3) We consider it necessary to explain that the telegram of the Reuters agency being examined with reference to the Paris News Agency and a similar Reuters telegram unlike an ordinary one, were distributed only to two addresses – to you and Cde. Molotov, and therefore Cdes. Beria, Malenkov, and Mikoyan found out about the existence of these telegrams after your call to Cde. Molotov.

V. MOLOTOV

L. BERIA

G. MALENKOV

A. MIKOYAN

12 November 1945

Received via VCh