Office of the Historian

Hopkins Papers

The Executive Officer, Division of Defense Aid Reports, Office of Lend-Lease Administration (Burns) to the President’s Special Assistant (Hopkins)

secret
Washington, January 9, 1942.

Memorandum for Mr. Hopkins.

Subject: Allocation of finished military equipment to Allies.

1.
There is attached hereto copy of memorandum on “Allocation of Finished Military Equipment to Allies” furnished me by General Moore.1 He asked me to forward it to you for approval in principle. He recommends such approval and will be glad to discuss it with you if you so desire.
2.
It contemplates the establishment of a Joint Allocation Committee in Washington which, based upon the military situation ruling at the time the equipment becomes available, would make bulk allocations of U. S. production of finished military equipment to the United States and to the United Kingdom only.
3.
The allocation to the United States would be, in turn, similarly allocated by the United States to its own forces and to its “protégés”, China, Latin America, Iceland and Russia.
4.
The allocation to the United Kingdom, together with Britain’s production, would be similarly allocated by the British War Office Allocation Committee of London to all countries in the British Empire, including India, and also to United Kingdom “protégés”, including Free French, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Dutch East Indies, Turkey and Russia.
5.
There are two major questions involved which are more or less interdependent, namely—the organizational setup for making allocations, [Page 352] and the assignment of various countries as “protégés” to the United States and the United Kingdom. The memorandum is directed primarily at the latter question.
6.
This latter question divides into two parts—the military and the political. From the overall military point of view the general idea seems to me to be sound provided that changes are in order when circumstances justify. I do not feel justified in commenting on the general political phase.
7.
It is believed, however, that the U.S.S.R. must not be considered as a “protégé”, either of the United States or the United Kingdom. It is rather a full partner, for it is certainly carrying its full share of the load at the present time. The protocol program will change with circumstances. Allocations to Russia should probably be treated jointly by the United States, the United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R. as a special question and on a high level. Not only United States production but also British production should be considered in the effort to meet Soviet needs.
J. H. Burns
  1. The attachment was a copy of Macready’s memorandum of January 7, 1942, supra. ↩