NMC
This telegram must be closely paraphrased before being communicated to anyone. (MC)
 
London
 
Dated August 1, 1942
 
Rec'd  2:15 a.m., 2nd
 
Secretary of State
Washington  
 
4294, August 1, 10 p.m.
 
I got from a person in whom I have confidence the following statement which I have personally
checked:
     "On Friday, July 31, Mr. Maisky received twenty-one editors-in-chief of leading British
newspapers and talked to them about the position of Russia.  What he said very closely followed
the lines of his remarks to nearly 300 Members of Parliament at a private gathering at the House
of Commons on the preceding day.
     He told the editors that the Caucasus and Lower Volga are gravely threatened.
     The only choice remaining to the Soviet armies, he said, was to withdraw to avoid
encirclement and annihilation.  They have retained their cohesion and fighting power.
     He recalled that the 1914-18 war Germany had never concentrated more than one third of
her army's striking forces on the Russian front, the other two thirds always having been pinned
down on the western front.