Office of the Historian

811.20 Defense (M) Turkey/187: Telegram

The Ambassador in Turkey (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Ankara, December 13, 1942—4 p.m.
[Received December 14—6:40 a.m.]

1278. Embassy’s 1240, December 7 [6], and 1271, December 12.

1.
The British Chargé has received under date of December 11 the formal reply of the Turkish Government to Hugessen’s letter of October 5. The text is the same as the draft with the following exceptions.
a.
First sentence of paragraph 2 reads as follows after “chrome ore”: “Declared after this date, whether already in stock or newly produced between above mentioned date and January 8, 1943.”
b.
In paragraph 3 (b) “engaged” has been replaced by “deliverable” and “reserved for” by “sold to”.
c.
The following phrase has been added to the end of first sentence in paragraph 4: “And intended for exportation.”
Second and third sentences in paragraph 4 have been changed to read as follows:

“If the Government of the Republic decides in the future to conclude agreements for eventual sale of chrome for exportation after January 1, 1945, it is understood that the first contract will be concluded with British Government.”

2.
The British Chargé endeavored to obtain insertion in paragraph 3 (b) of some specification of time when chrome not delivered to Germany shall be sold to the British Government. British Chargé proposed successively periods of 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. Numan insisted that his acceptance of any time limit in the agreement would get him into trouble with the Germans. He assured the British Chargé, however, that he proposed to supervise himself the deliveries of chrome to Germany and that he would take advantage of every loophole to reduce these deliveries to the minimum.
Steinhardt