811.20 (D) Regulations/1160
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me today at his request.
The Ambassador said he had one official matter to take up but before doing so he desired to speak with me unofficially and personally regarding a matter which was giving him great concern. He said that he had seen in the press an official press statement given out by the Department of State two days ago to the effect that in certain instances [Page 691] this Government would issue general export licenses78 rather than individual export licenses, and that this policy had already been announced as applicable to certain categories of exports to Canada.
I asked why the Ambassador was concerned. He said that under existing commercial agreements between the Soviet Union and the United States79 the Soviet Union was entitled to most-favored-nation treatment and to non-discrimination and that if general licenses were issued to one country and not to the Soviet Union, he could only regard such action on the part of this Government as a violation of the pledges of the most-favored-nation treatment enjoyed by the Soviet Union. I replied that the question would be carefully studied in the Department and that I could immediately say, as my first reaction to the Ambassador’s remarks, that I did not see that the question of the most-favored-nation treatment was involved. I said that in the very first conversations I had had with the Ambassador in the course of our present negotiations I had made it entirely clear that the policy of this Government was to give all possible assistance to the nations composing the British Empire, short of war, in their efforts of self-defense. I stated that, as the Ambassador knew, a very considerable portion of the munitions manufactured within the United States in connection with our own rearmament program would be transferred to England and to Canada, and that as a matter of convenience in connection with the carrying out of this policy, general licenses would be issued covering exports coming within these categories. I stated that, as the Ambassador also knew, the most careful and friendly consideration had been given by the authorities of this Government to the possibility of issuing export licenses for manufactured articles purchased in the United States by the Soviet agents and that this policy would be continued. I said I did not see any distinction in principle between the issuance of general licenses and the issuance of individual licenses and that I was unable to understand why the most-favored-nation treatment question arose in this connection. The Ambassador replied that in practice the nations to whom general licenses were issued were obviously going to enjoy far greater facilities in the way of obtaining desired materials in the United States than those to whom were issued only individual licenses.
I stated that I did not concede this argument for a moment and that the greater volume of materials which would be obtained by the nations composing the British Empire would be due solely to the policy of giving them all assistance short of war, to which I had [Page 692] above referred, rather than to the mechanical method employed in the issuance of licenses.
At this junction I said that, as the President had publicly announced only a few days ago,80 the Ambassador was well aware that this Government was determined to give every possible material assistance to the nations resisting aggression, namely, Great Britain, China, and Greece. I said that if the Soviet Union were now resisting aggression the Ambassador could appropriately urge that the same kind of mechanical methods employed in the issuance of licenses by the United States for the export of materials to these countries be granted also to the Soviet Union. To this the Ambassador replied that the Soviet Union was fortunately not resisting aggression and that he did not believe that it would have to resist aggression. I remarked that I trusted the Ambassador’s highly optimistic expressions would be justified by future events and that I was interested to hear that the Soviet Union foresaw no threat to its own security.
- Executive Order No. 8640, authorizing the use of general licenses for export-control purposes, was issued by the President on January 15, 1941. For text, see Department of State Bulletin, January 18, 1941, p. 91; or, 6 Federal Register 455.↩
- The existing commercial agreement was renewed by an exchange of notes signed on August 2, 1941; see pp. 914 ff.↩
- See the President’s radio address from the White House on December 29, 1940, Department of State Bulletin, January 4, 1941, p. 3.↩