840.50/4124/6: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 9—10:55 p.m.]
2532. Embassy’s telegrams 2397 and 2398 May 5.
1. Brief informal meeting held last night with Lie, Foreign Minister of Norway, and subsequently with Lamping and Philipse representing Dutch, by Leith-Ross and Steyne, during which their respective postwar relief purchasing plans were reviewed. Representatives of both Governments were orally requested: (a) to make no relief purchases without beforehand consulting with pertinent American or British supply departments, and (b) to suspend temporarily all relief supply purchasing on their own account until Anglo-American relief purchasing proposals were formulated and presented to Allied Nations. An answer has been promised by representatives of both Governments early next week. While request was not welcomed by representatives of either Government, assent, it is felt, may be expected from both.
2. Norwegian Minister particularly pressed the urgent need of his Government to purchase “on its own” small stocks of such foodstuffs and apparel as might be obtainable. He emphasized the increasing criticism to which he and his colleagues are being subjected by their compatriots here—particularly Norwegian seamen who are helping to transport supplies to this country—for their alleged failure to purchase some reserve relief stocks to be held under the control of the Norwegian Government for immediate transport to such regions of Norway as may be liberated. He added that they have recently been placed in a definitely difficult position vis-à-vis their countrymen on this question in the absence of any general Allied relief supply program which they could cite.
Norwegian Minister also expressed dissatisfaction with part which representatives of smaller Allies in London had been permitted to play so far in postwar relief purchasing plans. He said that his Government had the funds to buy and the ships to transport these relief goods. He therefore wanted Norway to be “an active not a sleeping partner” in any relief purchasing program, and added “We are not fighting against the new Germany order merely to go into a new Anglo-American order”. It was necessary, he intimated, if his Government was to retain the support of the majority of either free Norwegians or those in occupied Norway, for these people to be convinced that he and his colleagues were actively engaged in arranging for relief supplies. A small reserve stock—he mentioned 2 months’ basic relief needs—under direct control of Norwegian Government would be of outstanding assistance [Page 107] in obtaining this support and would convince the Norwegian sailors, armed forces and civilians in the homeland that their Government here was functioning as an active ally with full equality of status.
It was reiterated to Mr. Lie that no pressure was being placed upon his Government which would in any way lessen the full participation of his or any other Allied government in the relief work or the establishment of relief supplies, and that the difficulties facing his Government had the sympathetic understanding of both the British and American authorities. He was again told that all he was being asked to do was to consult with and coordinate any purchases his Government might contemplate being able to make with the pertinent Anglo-American supply authorities, and to suspend temporarily any purchases now being planned until the Anglo-American proposals now being formulated were presented to the other Allies.
3. The Dutch viewpoint was somewhat along the same lines as the Norwegian but it was expressed much less vehemently.
The keen desire of both Governments to possess at least token quantities of relief supplies under their direct control was very apparent. They are undoubtedly up against a real problem which deserves sympathetic consideration.