Office of the Historian

867.24/840

The British Minister (Campbell) to the Acting Secretary of State (Berle)

2762/11/43
Washington, October 21, 1943.

Dear Mr. Berle: I have now received a communication from London referring to your letter of August 31st, 1943, on the draft agreement99 between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Turkey concerning the financing of military supplies and other military assistance between the two Governments.

2.
His Majesty’s Government confirm the assumption in the second paragraph of your letter that the agreement is not intended to cover American supplies which have been or may be retransferred to Turkey by His Majesty’s Government.
3.
With reference to the observation of your Government on the absence of any provision such as Article VII of the United States–United Kingdom Mutual Aid Agreement of February 23rd, 1942, my Government state that in all their arrangements for the transfer of supplies to our Allies without cash charge they have refrained from asking for benefits of an extraneous character. The British Government would therefore not wish to require of Turkey any obligation other than to use the munitions in the common interest if they are required, to return them if they are not destroyed in the present war and to provide reciprocal aid of the same kind to the United Kingdom.
4.
Perhaps I should note that in my letter of August 21st to Mr. Acheson I inappropriately referred to a “Lease-Lend Agreement” [Page 1111] with Turkey. I should have referred to it as a Military Supplies Agreement.
5.
The omission of an article analogous to Article VII in the United States–United Kingdom Mutual Aid Agreement does not detract from the importance which His Majesty’s Government attach to that Article. As the United States Government are well aware the British Government are anxious to see a wide propagation among the United Nations of the principles embodied in Article VII of our Mutual Aid Agreement, but they do not wish to assert these principles in agreements relating to mutual assistance in prosecuting the war.

Very sincerely yours,

R. I. Campbell
  1. Draft agreement not printed.↩