to German orders, while Germany would allow the Soviets to order for German industrial goods. Under the agreement, Germany also granted the Soviet Union a merchandise credit of over 7 years to buy German manufactured goods at an extremely favorable interest rate. On August 22 the secret political negotiations were revealed when German newspapers announced that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were about to conclude a non-aggression pact, and that the Soviet Union's prolonged negotiations regarding a Triple Alliance with France and Britain had been suspended. The Soviets blamed on the Western powers their reluctance to take the Soviet Union's military assistance seriously and to acknowledge the Soviet right to cross Poland and Romania, if necessary against their will, and furthermore their failure to send representatives with more importance and clearly defined powers and to resolve the disagreement over the notion of "indirect aggression". On August 23, 1939, a German delegation headed by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived to Moscow, and in the following night, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed by him and his Soviet colleague Vyacheslav Molotov, in the presence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The ten-year pact of non-aggression declared both parties' continued adherence to the Treaty of Berlin (1926), but the pact was also supplemented by a secret additional protocol, which divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet zones of influence: 1. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party. 2. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San. The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish state and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments. In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement. 3. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its