Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

841.24/2094

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson)

[Washington,] September 9, 1943.

Mr. Opie called at his request. He referred to the report appearing in the morning newspaper of Wednesday, September 8, regarding the President’s elimination of two sentences from the letter transmitting the August lend-lease report to Congress.²⁰ I had available a copy of the Washington Post, containing this statement. Mr. Opie asked whether I could throw any light upon this matter and whether it represented a change of policy.

I said that I could add very little to the information given in the report of the President’s press conference,²¹ since I have been out of town until Monday²² of this week. As the President had stated to the press, the letter had been printed in the belief that he had seen the document, when in fact he had not. Also, as the President stated, the two sentences in question did not in the President’s view “do justice to the whole situation.” He was therefore eliminating them from the report.

The letter in question had not been cleared with the Department of State. I was out of town; Mr. Kermit Roosevelt in my office was not shown the letter, as was usually the case; and the Secretary was also away. So far as I knew, no one in the Department had seen it. If I had seen it, I should have objected to the sentences, since, as the President stated, they did not adequately state the situation, whatever the intention of the writer had been. The principles applicable to final settlement, as stated in Article VII,²³ had been the subject of discussion at the time of the making of the agreement, had been discussed in various earlier reports by the President, had been the subject of testimony before Congressional committees, and had been discussed by the Congressional committees. It was obvious that these two sentences did not adequately summarize or describe what had been said.

I did not interpret the President’s elimination of these sentences or his remarks at the press conference as altering the provisions of the agreement or the very full discussions of it referred to above. However, I knew nothing more about the situation than appeared in the press, and I did not know of any discussion between the President and the Secretary on this subject. I said that it would seem probable that, if the President had intended to make any change in policy, the matter would have been discussed with the Prime Minister, who was at the White House at the time of this press conference.²⁴

Mr. Opie expressed some apprehension as to speculation which might be aroused in Great Britain regarding this incident, which might adversely affect our negotiations concerning the provision by the United Kingdom of raw materials on reverse lend-lease. I expressed the hope that this would not occur.

Dean Acheson

20. This letter from President Roosevelt to Congress transmitting the Eleventh Quarterly Report on Lend-Lease Operations is printed in the Department of State Bulletin, August 28, 1943, p. 124; for the note concerning the elimination of the two sentences, see ibid., September 11, 1943, p. 168. The two sentences in question read as follows: “The Congress in passing and extending the Lend-Lease Act made it plain that the United States wants no new war debts to jeopardize the coming peace. Victory and a secure peace are the only coin in which we can be repaid.”
21. For President Roosevelt’s comments at his press conference of September 7 on the exclusion of the two sentences, see Samuel I. Rosenman (ed.), The Tide Turns, 1943 volume in the series The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York, Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1950), pp. 374–375.
22. September 6.
23. Reference is to article VII of the Lend-Lease Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, signed at Washington. February 23, 1942. For text, see Executive Agreement Series No. 241, or 56 Stat. (pt. 2) 1433; for correspondence, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. i, pp. 525 ff.
24. Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, following the First Quebec Conference, August 17–24, 1943, came to the United States and did not begin his return journey to Great Britain until September 12.