Cold War Primary Sources | Nikolai V. Novikov

Excerpt from the "Novikov Telegram," September 27, 1946

Available at Cold War International History Project (Web site)

"Careful note should be taken of the fact that the preparation by the United States for a future is being conducted with the prospect of war against the Soviet Union, which in the eyes of the American imperialists is the main obstacle in the path of the United States to world domination."

Nikolai V. Novikov, Soviet ambassador to Washington, D.C., wrote and sent the "Novikov Telegram" to Moscow on September 27, 1946. In the telegram, which, like the famous telegram of U.S. advisor George F. Kennan (1904–), was "long," Novikov analyzed U.S. foreign policy in much the same way Kennan analyzed Soviet foreign policy, his "Long Telegram."

Novikov declared that the United States was striving for "world supremacy." He suggested that because...