The course of talks between Moscow and Washington on the provision of a post-war credit to the Soviet Union is discussed in the article. Negotiations between the American and Soviet sides on this issue began in 1943 and initially developed quite successfully, although not quickly. However, in early 1945, Washington’s position changed dramatically: in providing the USSR with a credit, the Roosevelt administration began to see a lever of pressure on Moscow. After coming to the post the new U.S. President G. Truman was guided by the same considerations. In August 1945 in connection with the adoption of the law on expanding the powers of the Export-Import Bank, the Soviet Union was actually invited to start negotiations from scratch, and later that year, the USSR’s request for a billion-dollar loan was “lost” in papers of the Foreign Economic Administration. In early 1946, the issue of credit began to be considered by the U.S. government in conjunction with other economic problems in Soviet-American relations, and by the summer of 1946 it had completely lost its significance to the American side.

The article is written on the basis of Soviet and American archival documents, many of which have been previously unknown to researchers. The author concludes that the inability of Moscow and Washington to reach a consensus on the issue of credit was a diplomatic failure for both sides and played a significant role in growing tensions between the two countries.