811.20 Defense(M)/3701: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray)50
202. Your 414, November 5. Department after consultation with British Embassy is in agreement with suggestions your paragraph 1. The policy to be followed is to lift all the chrome to be produced during 1942 and in addition all stocks which have accumulated at the mines, ports and railway stations. According to information supplied to the British Embassy here direct from Ankara, the Turkish 1942 production of 48 percent ore and of concentrates will be about 90,000 tons and of all grades about 160,000 tons. Furthermore, there are now at ports and railway stations about 80,000 tons and at mines about 200,000 tons. Accordingly, to carry out the policy of lifting all chrome now on hand or to be produced in 1942, it will be necessary to make arrangements to lift 440,000 tons. Please confirm if your figures agree since it is clear if these figures are correct that the measures we take in 1942 will have to be on a quite different scale to those employed in 1941 when only 81,000 tons were lifted.
The Department is in agreement with your recommendation that the British chrome purchase contract covering the year ending January 8, 1943 be expedited. The Department believes that the agreement should include all stocks on hand plus the 1942 production to the extent that this production is not already contracted for under the agreement terminating January 8, 1942. The reason why the contract should be drawn in this way is that the Department desires that there should be no chrome on hand on January 8, 1943 which is not subject to prior contract to Great Britain or the United States.
With reference to your paragraph 3, the Department agrees that no representative of Metals Reserve Company go to Turkey at present. However, it is believed that in view of the importance of the transportation problem, it would be helpful to you and to the British to have American transportation experts to assist you in the negotiations with the Turkish Government with respect to transportation, which negotiations will clearly be most difficult. Please telegraph if you are in agreement, in which event necessary arrangements will be made immediately.
Your paragraph 4 will be the subject of a later telegram since the points raised in this paragraph involve consultation with other Departments and agencies of the Government.
The Department requests that you reconsider your paragraph 5. The Department does not desire to discuss at this time the purchase [Page 971] of chrome subsequent to January 8, 1943 if there is any possibility of being asked during such negotiations to recognize the validity of any claim by Germany with respect to the chrome production of Turkey subsequent to January 8, 1943 and it would seem most difficult to avoid this subject if you were now to begin conversations for the purchase of the production in 1943 and subsequent years. You are accordingly requested, after consultation with your British colleague, to give us your further recommendations on this point bearing in mind that if you both should recommend that such a long term contract be made, it would be given most favorable consideration.
- Repeated on the same date to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom as telegram No. 5108.↩