868.248/137
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Murray) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Mr. Welles: Captain Ramsey, of the Bureau of Aeronautics, has just informed me that the President has replied to the communication sent him yesterday by Under Secretary Forrestal, at your request, and has authorized the delivery of the Grumman planes to the Greeks.
I think you would wish to know, however, that Air Vice Marshal Slessor has injected into this matter the old condition originally put forth by Mr. Butler at an earlier date, namely that in return for the British willingness to let the Grumman planes go to the Greeks we should transport the Tomahawk planes, when available, on American ships to Basra for delivery to the British. I pointed out to Captain Ramsay that no such condition had been laid down by Air Vice Marshal Slessor when an agreement in this matter was reached in Secretary Knox’s office and that it seemed to me improper to try to inject it now, particularly in view of the fact that we were assured at the time that sufficient British tonnage was immediately available to transport fifteen of the planes and in view, furthermore, of the emphatic statement made by the Greek Minister that an agreement had been reached in London between the competent British authorities and the Greek Legation that British vessels for the transport of the entire thirty planes would be made available. Captain Ramsay said he had discussed this phase of the matter with Admiral Towers and that they were emphatically in accord with my view that we should not allow this matter to become complicated again by the injection of any new condition on shipping and that the Navy would certainly persist in that viewpoint.
Meanwhile the Greek Minister has again come to see me and pointed out that when Secretary Knox was instructed by the President to offer the thirty Grumman planes to Greece, in the first instance, he at the same time offered fifteen of the old training planes apparently for “good measure”. Now that the thirty new planes—God willing—were about to be turned over, he said he felt it necessary to inquire regarding the fifteen old planes since he had already referred this matter to his Government, and they had eagerly accepted the entire number, namely 45.
I told the Greek Minister I greatly feared that in the interim after the decision was taken to turn the Grumman planes over to the British, the fifteen old planes had been uncrated and turned back to the Navy, which was desperately in need of them for training purposes. The Minister replied—very helpfully, I thought—that he felt sure his [Page 711] Government would not insist on receiving the old planes, however much they were wanted, if he could be informed in writing by the Navy Department that the planes were now urgently needed for our defense purposes.
I am now discussing this phase of the question with Captain Ramsey and I shall inform you as soon as we have worked out a satisfactory solution.