867.24/183: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
4159. The British Government has on a number of occasions during the past few months expressed the hope that the United States would continue to grant such aid and facilities to Turkey as possible. Lord Halifax made a special plea on August 2, 1941, asking that there be no “holdup” in granting such aid. Largely as a result of these representations by the British Government, the Department of State has made very considerable effort during the past 2 months to obtain approval by the appropriate authorities of this Government of a number of applications submitted by the British Purchasing Commission for Lend-Lease aid to Turkey. The American Ambassador in Ankara has been authorized to inform the Turkish Government of the endeavors of the American Government to facilitate aid to Turkey.
For several weeks the State Department, in continuing its efforts to have items on the pending Turkish list approved, has realized that there was some opposition to granting the Turkish approvals, but the exact source of the opposition was not immediately apparent. A few days ago the Department received the surprising information that practically all of the Turkish items had been refused, at least for the time being, by the United States War Department as a result of a specific request by the British Purchasing Commission that the financing of these items be deferred.
The explanation of the Purchasing Commission is that Great Britain has already made applications for lend-lease aid in excess of the amount of money available to Great Britain under present lend-lease appropriations, and that the granting of Turkish requests would consequently reduce the amount available to Britain. The Department has made known to the Purchasing Commission informally that this explanation is not considered satisfactory, since the British Government, at the time it was urging us to accord more aid to Turkey, should have taken account of these circumstances and considered in advance just how much importance it placed on Turkey’s being accorded the items on the list. As the matter stands, the Turkish Government has evidently concluded that the failure of this Government to take more prompt action with regard to aid to Turkey has been something for which the United States, not Great Britain, was primarily responsible. The Foreign Minister of Turkey recently spoke in a rather critical manner to Ambassador MacMurray of the failure of the oft-mentioned aid from the United States to materialize.
[Page 906]When reminded by the Department of the insistence of the British Embassy upon prompt aid to Turkey and the simultaneous request of the Purchasing Commission that the aid be deferred, a member of the Commission has frankly admitted that there is great need of a further clarification of the British Government’s policy in this matter. The Purchasing Commission has undertaken to obtain this clarification, but you are requested to bring the circumstances to the attention of Mr. Eden, pointing out the difficulty which Mr. MacMurray is finding in explaining to the Turkish Government the failure of American aid to Turkey to reach the expected amount.
Repeated to Ankara.96
- As telegram No. 173, October 1, 9 p.m.↩