Hopkins Papers
The Legal Counsel, Office of Lend-Lease Administration (Cox) to the Lend-Lease Administrator (Stettinius)
Washington,
January 12,
1942.
Subject: The Macready Memorandum on the Allocation of Finished Military Equipment to Allies.1
- 1.
- The plan of having the United States and the United Kingdom alone allocating military equpiment to “protégé” allies is open to question.
- 2.
- Russia, China, the Dutch East Indies and the other allies cannot be treated as stepchildren “protégés” if we want to win this war sooner rather than later. They, together with the U.S. and the U.K., should sit at the table as full members of the family. This should be so, whether they all decide on the division of the equipment or the “old man” makes the division himself, after listening to the needs and desires of all of the different members of the family.
- 3.
- There are innumerable practical reasons of political strategy and administration which lead to the conclusion that the United States should allocate its own production, after giving due consideration to the needs and wants of all of the allies. It is important not only to the United States, but to winning the war for all of us, that all of the allies—Russia, China and the others, as well as the U.K.—feel they are getting a just and fair share of our production by our good grace, rather than by the good grace of the U.K. We have already seen the signs of this even in the case of a part of the British Empire such as [Page 357] Australia. If we want air bases, naval bases and other things from them for our joint effort, we can get them on a better basis because we supplied them before our need arose.
- 4.
- It strikes me that the allocation not only of the United States’ production of guns and planes, but the allocation of our machine tools and other things directly related to the production of finished military equipment, as well as our shipping, should be handled on substantially the same basis. Experience has shown that as long as shipping is less plentiful than munitions, shipping is the more important limiting and strategic factor. This will doubtless be even more so in the next year. In many cases, the question of whether certain machine tools should be used here, or in Australia, for example, for making guns or tanks, is of primary strategic importance, particularly if the shipping factor is taken into account. The same may be true even in the case of certain raw materials where there is not enough for all military purposes, even though civilian consumption has been cut to the bone.
- 5.
- Administratively, the allocation of finished military
equipment, tools, etc. directly related to finished equipment
and shipping might be handled somewhat as follows:
- a)
- A United Nations Supply Council is set up.
- b)
- All of the 26 nations that signed the Joint Declaration would have membership on it.
- c)
- For the purposes of allocating U.S. supplies and ships, there would be a U.S. executive committee. Such a committee should preferably be chairmaned by Mr. Hopkins, since he has the originality, imagination and astuteness to see the over-all picture and be aware of the reactions of the leaders and people of the countries in a way no military or naval expert could. The U.S. executive committee should also have Ajrmy, Navy, Maritime, Lend-Lease and Economic Warfare representation. The executive committee should utilize the Lend-Lease Administration as its secretariat, having it augmented either by personnel or information from some of the other interested agencies, or, in the alternative, it might set up another secretariat.
- d)
- The U.S. executive committee would keep a continuous inventory of the needs and wants of all of the United Nations. It should be kept continuously informed by the United Kingdom and the others as to what they are supplying to the other United Nations. Wherever necessary or desirable, it would consult with their representatives. But the final decisions on allocations of U.S. supplies would be with this committee.
- e)
- The U.K. should probably set up a similar executive committee to allocate British equipment and shipping. The U.K. executive committee and its secretariat should work very closely with the U.S. executive committee.
Oscar Cox