851R.50/21a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Algiers (Cole)
427. For Murphy. My nos. 408 and 417, November 13 and November 18, and your no. 147, November 17. The Department in conjunction with the other interested agencies of the Government is preparing a comprehensive program of economic cooperation with North Africa.
The first step must obviously be to meet the most urgent needs for essential supplies without delay and without benefit of elaborate investigation and machinery. The Department in its no. 417 of November 18 has listed certain supplies which are ready to go forward in the immediate future. Arrangements are being made to ship promptly additional quantities of the materials specifically mentioned in your no. 147 and you will be informed as shipments depart. A vessel laden with 15,000 tons of coal has left New York for Casablanca and is expected to arrive in the near future. It is understood that additional shipments of coal are en route from England to North Africa. You are requested to report any specific and especially pressing needs either for goods previously supplied under the North African Accord or for supplies normally imported from metropolitan France. Efforts will be made to meet these most pressing needs at once.
In the meantime the Department is preparing to send out to assist you in economic matters a staff somewhat more numerous than that suggested in my no. 408 November 13. The contemplated [Page 450] functions to be performed by this group, under your direction and subject to the requirements of military operations, would include the following:
- (1)
- The supply of essential materials to the civil population and to vital utilities and industries. This function will involve a continuing examination of needs and such participation in distribution as may prove desirable.
- (2)
- The purchase both of strategic materials which are immediately required in the United Nations war effort and, in reasonable quantities, of other products, the production and normal markets for which have been disturbed by our occupation. This function will involve not only purchase and export but storage of the latter type of products for future sale or use in eventual United Nations operations.
- (3)
- The handling of currency and financial problems, including the use of dollars as legal tender and the rate of exchange between dollars and francs, exchange control matters, banking problems generally and the control of undesirable commercial and financial activities by the fund freezing technique. This function would involve a survey of the whole financial situation and the establishment of whatever controls may prove necessary, as well as the examination of the files of Axis firms and of government documents with a view towards obtaining information concerning persons engaging in undesirable commercial and financial transactions and enemy plans and activities.
- (4)
- The maintenance, repair and expansion of vital transportation facilities, including railroads, port facilities and automotive transport. This function will involve a careful survey of needs and advice and assistance in operation.
- (5)
- The maintenance of public health. This function will involve an estimate of needed supplies and advice as to their utilization. The function will of course involve coordination with the Red Cross and other relief agencies.
- (6)
- Expansion of the production of foodstuffs and other materials needed by the civil population, by our armed forces, or elsewhere in the United Nations. This function will involve a survey of the pertinent industries, the supply of needed equipment and advice and assistance in its installation and use.
All of the foregoing, of course, must be within the limit of our supply and shipping possibilities.
It is expected that experts to perform these functions will be supplied by the Department, OLLA,77 BEW, Treasury, War Shipping Administration, Department of Agriculture and United States Public Health Service. Those most pressingly needed will be sent at once and others later as the need is more clearly defined. All of these experts will be attached to your staff and will be under your direction. One will presumably act as your deputy in coordinating the entire economic program. The interested agencies [Page 451] have in mind a total of approximately 20 officers to be sent in the immediate future. In the light of the program outlined above, does this seem to you a reasonable figure? It is desired to send enough to do the job well but not more than is actually necessary.
This general program is being discussed with British officials in Washington, and is being communicated to our Embassy in London. We desire to cooperate fully with the British in carrying out the program, while at the same time maintaining the basic responsibility as ours.
Your comments and recommendations in regard to any feature of the proposed program and in regard to its implementation will be most welcome. If you feel it desirable to do so, you may make known to the appropriate French authorities and to the press the general outline of the program or any particular feature which seems to have political value. The War Department has been informed and you should discuss the program with Eisenhower and invite his comments.
- Office of Lend-Lease Administration.↩