861.24/523½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The Soviet Ambassador called to see me at his request this afternoon. The Ambassador first of all stated that he was instructed by his Government to say the Soviet Government welcomed the suggestion of the President that representatives of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union sit down together in Washington in order to try to reach some friendly and common determination of where munitions and matériel being produced in the United States and being made available under the Lend-Lease Act could be utilized to the most advantage from the military standpoint under present conditions. The Ambassador stated that he himself had been designated by his Government to represent the Soviet Union and expressed his willingness to be available at any moment to take part in the joint discussions suggested.
The Ambassador again complained vehemently and, for the first time in some weeks, in rather unmeasured terms of the delays he was encountering in obtaining any specific information as to the attitude of this Government with regard to the supplies required by the Soviet Union.
I told the Ambassador that I regretted very much that I was unable to discuss in detail these questions with him. I said I was sure he would understand that my time was so fully taken up with other [Page 796] matters that I was not able to devote ten or twelve hours a day to discussing with him or his representatives the hundreds of items on the lists which he had presented. I said that I was completely confident that Mr. Acheson, busy as he was, was devoting a great deal of personal attention to these problems and that Mr. Curtis and his associates were doing everything possible to expedite satisfactory decisions on the requests made. I said that I was in a position where I could now say to the Ambassador that the specific recommendations offered to the President with regard to the more urgent of the matters brought up by the Soviet Ambassador had been approved in principle by the President and that the President himself had sent personal instructions to the heads of the Departments and Agencies directly concerned in the determination of these matters containing the President’s wishes with regard to these points. I said I felt that the whole matter had been handled with the utmost measure of expedition; that the President himself had directly intervened and that I must expect from the Ambassador reasonable consideration and patience until the matériel requested could actually be made available to the Soviet representatives.
The Ambassador said that with regard to his nine-point list, very little satisfaction, if any, had as yet been given him. I said I was surprised to hear that since, from the information Mr. Acheson had given me, I knew that the Ambassador had already been told where the rubber tire factories were located which the Soviet Government would purchase and also of the agreement with this Government to make available to the Soviet Union the quantity of toluol desired over a period of six months. The Ambassador admitted that I was correct with regard to the first of these matters, but said that with regard to the latter point all that he had been told was of our agreement in principle and he had not as yet the slightest indication what the initial installment of the toluol might be, where it was located or what the price might be.
He also said that he had had no word at all with regard to the two tankers requested on the Pacific coast in order to supplement the tankers held available by the Soviet Union for the shipment of supplies from the United States to Vladivostok. I said that I would have this matter once more investigated.
The Ambassador further said that on Soviet list No. 2, he had had no word whatever with regard to such very vital matters as the brass strip for cartridges required by the Soviet Union or the molybdenum urgently needed.
The Ambassador touched upon his conversation with Mr. Jesse Jones41 with regard to a Soviet credit but added nothing to what Mr. Jones had already told me.
[Page 797]He likewise brought up the question of the RCA and Wright Aeronautical Corporation requests and I said I would have to ask him to discuss these matters with Mr. Acheson as I was not in a position to keep abreast of all of these questions in detail.
The Ambassador then stated that he wanted my cooperation in making it possible for the Soviet Union to place an order for the construction, with the Foster and Wheeler Corporation of Hartford, Connecticut, of six emergency cargo ships. The Ambassador stated that he was informed informally by the corporation that they could undertake this order notwithstanding their other Governmental and British commitments.
I then told the Ambassador that with regard to points Nos. 1 and 2 on his nine-point list, I was happy to tell him that the President had today directed that a number of Lockheed Watson bombers, already constructed and now in the United States, would be made available to the Soviet Union and that these bombers would be flown to Russia by way of Alaska.
I said that the President had likewise directed that at least a squadron of P-40 pursuit planes be made available for the Soviet Union, but that in view of our own difficulty of determining how these P-40’s could be flown to the Soviet Union—namely, whether via Siberia or via Africa—because of our doubt of the ability of the P-40’s to stand long hops between landing fields in view of the delicacy of the plane, it had been determined to await the arrival of the military mission headed by General Golikov, which, from information reaching me today, I believed was due in Washington next week. I said that as soon as a joint determination had been reached between our aviation experts and General Golikov, arrangements would be made for the making available of these pursuit planes to the Soviet authorities. I said that with regard to additional pursuit planes and bombers, this was a matter which the Ambassador would have to work out with the authorities designated to discuss with him such questions as the placing of orders, et cetera.
- Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, Federal Loan Administrator, etc.↩