The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 46
134. Your 166 of 16th [15th] July. I have delayed my reply until I could study the Trans Persian situation on the spot. This I have now done both at Teheran and here, and have conferred with [Page 312] Averell,52 General Maxwell,53 General Spalding54 and their railway experts. The traffic on the Trans Persian Railway is expected to reach three thousand tons a day for all purposes by end of the year. We are all convinced that it ought to be raised to six thousand tons. Only in this way can we ensure an expanding flow of supplies to Russia while building up the military forces which we must move into Northern Persia to meet a possible German advance.
To reach the higher figure, it will be necessary to increase largely the railway personnel and to provide additional quantities of rolling stock and technical equipment. Furthermore, the target will only be attained in reasonable time if enthusiasm and energy are devoted to the task and a high priority accorded to its requirements.
I therefore welcome and accept your most helpful proposal contained in your telegram, that the railway should be taken over, developed and operated by the United States Army. With the railway should be included the ports of Khorramnshahr and Bandarshahpur. Your people would thus undertake the great task of opening up the Persian corridor, which will carry primarily your supplies to Russia. All our people here agree on the benefits which would follow your approval of this suggestion. We should be unable to find the resources without your help and our burden in the Middle East would be eased by the release for use elsewhere of the British Units now operating the railway. The railway and ports would be managed entirely by your people, though the allocation of traffic would have to be retained in the hands of the British Military Authorities for whom the railway is an essential channel of communication for operational purposes. I see no obstacle in this to harmonious working.
The changeover would have to be carefully planned to avoid any temporary reduction of effort, but I think it should start as soon as possible. Averell is cabling you detailed suggestions.
- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
- Prime Minister Churchill was in Cairo on August 22; file copy of this message, however, bears the dateline London.↩
- W. Averell Harriman, Representative in London of the Combined Production and Resources Board (Lend-Lease Coordinator).↩
- Maj. Gen. Russell L. Maxwell, Commanding General of United States Army Forces in the Middle East.↩
- Brig. Gen. Sidney P. Spalding, member of the Munitions Assignments Board, United States–Great Britain; for his assignment to undertake a survey of the supply route to the Soviet Union by way of the Persian Gulf, see telegram No. 188, July 8, 4 a m., to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, vol. iii, p. 713.↩