845.24/373a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of
State to Mr. William
Phillips, Personal Representative of President
Roosevelt in India
Washington, March 3,
1943—4 p.m.
131. The following message8
has been sent to Harriman9 for
whatever informal action may be appropriate in London:
- “1. We have recently learned that the arrangements for
providing reciprocal lend-lease in India are not working
satisfactorily in several respects, and that the United
States Army is purchasing a very considerable part of the
supplies it obtains locally. It is, for example,
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hiring 70% of all
labor, it is paying for 20% of all construction, it has
purchased all the cars it has obtained, and it is hiring its
own office personnel. Our officers in charge are
discouraged, and they report a disposition on the part of
our Army establishment in India to discount the availability
of reciprocal lend-lease, and to prefer purchase as a method
of procurement.
- “2. Major General Packingham-Walsh is reported to be
assigned by the British Government to India to work on
lend-lease in reverse. It would be desirable to discuss the
general problem of reverse lend-lease with him informally
but at length before his departure to be sure that he is
thoroughly familiar with the satisfactory arrangements now
in effect in the United Kingdom.
- “3. You may take up informally with appropriate officials
the general problem of improved organization in India and
the possibility of changes in reverse lend-lease policy.
There would be a good chance for real improvement if British
officers thoroughly familiar with the system as it has been
working in Great Britain were sent out fully instructed to
reorganize the Indian lend-lease establishment.
- “4. These specific suggestions are advanced:
- (a)
- that appropriate United States military and
civilian officials be represented on committees
allocating and assigning supplies as the British are
represented in Washington, and as we are represented
in the United Kingdom;
- (b)
- that reciprocal lend-lease be available even when
supplies are not in stock, and procurement is
therefore necessary. It is felt that Government of
India procurement would be cheaper and more
satisfactory than competitive purchases by the U. S.
Army in the open market;
- (c)
- that differences in standard as between the
British and the TT. S. Army be not regarded as an
automatic bar to reciprocal lend-lease aid;
- (d)
- that the possibility be explored of establishing
financial arrangements such as those which exist in
the United Kingdom for task funds or other means of
direct procurement by U. S. officers for the account
of the Government of India.
- “5. Our report on the Indian reciprocal lend-lease
situation was such as to indicate the need for vigorous
action by the Government of India. The experience of the U.
S. Army with this problem in India is disturbing both from
the substantive point of view and from the point of view of
psychological reaction.
- “6. For your confidential information, the Indian Agent
General has recently proposed a reciprocal aid agreement,
and in the course of discussion pointed out that in their
view the Government of India has provided aid to our forces
greater in value than the value of the lend-lease aid sent
by us to India. Our response was that this point, if it were
true, is irrelevant in the light of the basic purposes of
our mutual aid arrangements.”
You may pursue parallel informal enquiries with appropriate officers of
the Government of India, particularly with Treasury officials. General
Wheeler has not made any official complaint in this matter.
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Ecker, who will be in charge
of the Lend-Lease Mission, will be arriving soon, accompanied by
Winthrop Brown.10 They are both familiar
with this problem.
