Word: litvinov
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Twice last week British Ambassador Sir Esmond Ovey clapped his hat on his bald, aristocratic head and left his Moscow Embassy. First he went over to the office of Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov to demand the immediate release of four British engineers: W. H. Thornton, W. H. MacDonald, John Cushny, and one Gregory, still held in Soviet jails last week on charges of sabotage (TIME, March...
...unless the Metropolitan-Yickers engineers were released at once, unless the Soviet Government promised that they would never have to stand trial, Britain will place an embargo on all Russian goods, effective April 17, when the present Anglo-Russian trade agreement expires. Before Sir Esmond had finished, rotund Commissar Litvinov interrupted...
...railway station. Quickly the young men in his Embassy announced that this was not an official recall; unofficially they let it be known that it was unlikely Sir Esmond would return to Moscow. In the smoky station was gathered the entire foreign diplomatic corps (but not Commissar Litvinov or his British wife, Ivy Low) to bid Sir Esmond and his wife Godspeed. As the train pulled out every hat was raised in silent salute. Up went the Ovey...
What British newspapers called the "unprecedented bluster" of Commissar Litvinov's speech made Britons wonder if after all the Soviet Government might not have some real evidence against the arrested engineers, particularly when two other engineers of the same firm arrested on the same charges at the same time, had been so promptly released. Proceeding cautiously, the Government planned to introduce in the House of Commons a bill empowering the Government to declare an embargo on April 17; but about the Moscow trial the Prime Minister would say nothing "because to do so would not be in interest...
Four of the other British chelovyeks were not quite so chestny. Though treated almost as well, they remained in jail. Ambassador Ovey was allowed to see them once, in the presence of OGPU officials. Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov declared that they would be given a fair and public trial in April, with Russian lawyers assigned to their defense. Meanwhile, panic seized U. S. engineers in Russia who had no embassies at all to defend them. From Moscow a General Electric official telephoned Berlin that he was "unable to hold the men." Hardly had he rung off before...