An Ultimatum, Almost

Soviet statesmen were pained last week by what seemed to them an unreasonably abrupt decision on President Roosevelt's part to drop the game of "Let's Pretend," begun when Washington extended diplomatic recognition to Moscow (TIME, Nov. 27, 1933). The pretense, in Russian eyes, was exactly 50% of Mr. Roosevelt's making. He knew, as all the world knew, that the Soviet State has always had in Moscow the Comintern (see col. 3) which has as its avowed object the violent overthrow of the U. S. and all other non-Communist governments. Yet, knowing this, the President accepted assurances from Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff which meant nothing at all if they did not mean that Dictator Stalin would abolish the Comintern or move it out of Russia. Since this was never contemplated, Soviet leaders have assumed from the first that Mr. Roosevelt was joining them in an elaborate political pretense. Last week many Reds were amazed when bald, able U. S. Ambassador William Christian Bullitt marched into the Soviet Foreign Office and smacked down a note so harsh that it stopped just short of an ultimatum.

In Moscow these many months Mr. Bullitt has been the one envoy of a capitalist power who fraternized with Soviet folk of every sort. He could often be seen at parties with a Red ballerina, an immemorial Russian custom. Agents of the Soviet tourist bureau, Russian concert singers and Big Reds of all sorts have felt they had a friend in likeable "Bill" Bullitt, and something like another friend in charming Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The sudden note from Washington last week was based not on previous Soviet violations of the Litvinoff pledge of noninterference with U. S. domestic affairs, but on the latest Comintern Congress in Moscow, at which U. S. Communist leaders in numbers openly vaunted their Red activities (TIME, Aug. 12 & 26). Ambassador Bullitt first announced that he would be out of Moscow during the Congress, visiting Soviet Black Sea resorts with his 11-year-old daughter Anne. At the last moment he canceled these plans, ably reported on the Conference day by day to Washington.

"I have the honor," Ambassador Bullitt told Acting Soviet Foreign Commissar Nikolai Krestinsky in the formal U. S. note, "to call attention to the activities, involving interference in the internal affairs of the United States, which have taken place on the territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . . and . . . to lodge a most emphatic protest against the flagrant violation of the pledge given by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . . prior to the establishment of diplomatic relations."

In even stronger language the Bullitt note declared that the Roosevelt Administration "anticipates the most serious consequences if the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is unwilling or unable to take appropriate measures to prevent further disregard of the solemn pledge given by it. . . ." Finally came the threat that if violations continue "the development of friendly relations between the Russian and American peoples will inevitably be precluded."

This punch was pulled by telling Washington correspondents at the State Department not to interpret the Bullitt note's strong language as meaning that President Roosevelt means to sever U. S.-Soviet relations. Its meaning last week seemed to be that the Administration, whether or not it was ever privately fooled by the Litvinoff pledge, does not choose to be fooled publicly any longer.

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