Office of the Historian

811.24/1865: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)6

Washington, August 4, 1943.

4705. Personal for the Ambassador. Your 5044, August 3,7 and 5065,8 5066 August 4, 7 p.m. The Chancellor’s reply to Secretary Morgenthau was delivered in an aide-mémoire9 from the British Embassy here. In several respects the reply does not meet Secretary Morgenthau’s request and these matters he wishes to take up further with the Chancellor. Secretary Morgenthau learned only this afternoon that the Chancellor expected to announce his proposed action on the raw materials question in his statement to Parliament tomorrow. This afternoon Secretary Morgenthau asked Lord Halifax, Sir David Waley,10 Mr. Stettinius, and Assistant Secretary Acheson to meet with him. Lord Halifax was requested to ask the Chancellor to postpone his statement until Parliament meets again in September for the following reasons:

If the Chancellor announces his action on Secretary Morgenthau’s request regarding raw materials on reverse lend lease, Secretary Morgenthau will be questioned about it, which would cause him great embarrassment.11 He cannot say that the proposed action is satisfactory and believes that public discussion will greatly impede negotiations. Among the matters which he wishes to discuss are: the scope of raw materials to be covered; the date at which the arrangement goes into effect; and the arrangements regarding raw materials originating in the Dominions. It was also pointed out to Lord Halifax that the public reaction here to an announcement regarding figures of British reverse lend lease would be much improved if at the same time an announcement could be made on a solution of the [Page 74] raw materials matter agreeable to both governments. Since the latter is not at a stage where this can be done, it was hoped that the entire statement would be postponed. In any event, Secretary Morgenthau felt strongly that no statement should be made on the raw materials question at this time.

Lord Halifax agreed to convey these views urgently to the Chancellor. Please inform Harriman from Stettinius regarding the above and tell him that Philip Reed12 participated in the preliminary discussion with Secretary Morgenthau and approved of the views above stated.

Hull
  1. Marginal notation reads: “Authorized by Messrs Stettinius and Morgenthau D[ean] A[cheson]”.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Dated August 4, 1943, 7 p.m., not printed.↩
  4. Dated August 2, p. 69.↩
  5. United Kingdom Treasury Representative, British Supply Council, Washington.↩
  6. In telegram No. 5097, August 5, 1943, 11 a.m., the Ambassador in the United Kingdom informed the Secretary of the Treasury that the Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed to withhold the statement he had planned to make to the House of Commons on that day (102.1/8812).↩
  7. Deputy Chief of the Harriman Mission in London.↩