Editorial Note

At this meeting Morgenthau and Cherwell discussed the words “or sold for profit” which had been inserted in the record of the Roosevelt–Churchill discussion of lend-lease on September 14, 1944 (see ante, p. 345, fn. 2). Morgenthau recounted the meeting as follows to a group of colleagues in the Treasury Department at a conference held at 3:20 p.m., September 19:

“H.M. Jr. [Morgenthau]: And then they cornered me. They waited until half past seven Friday night and wanted me to change it. I said no, that I couldn’t go back to the President again, but my understanding was—and I used gasoline as an example—that we sent a lot of gasoline over there and it was put on their books at a price plus transportation, and they sold it back to us.

Mr. White: To us?

“H. M. Jr.: Yes. And that would go for anything else; that wheat at a dollar a bushel would be a dollar a bushel plus transportation, storage, and handling.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[Page 372]

“… Here is the thing. ‘Lend-lease then would [not] be exported or sold for profit’, and he wanted it, ‘would be exported and sold’, I think. He wanted to change it, anyway.

“I said I just wouldn’t go back. I went back once and got the ‘or sold,’ and the President said, ‘for profit.’ Now, what they want is to be able to do what they are always doing, to dispose of the stuff.” (Morgenthau Diary, vol. 772)

On September 20 Morgenthau told a group of American officials: “They wanted me to [go] back a third time and I refused to. I said we would exchange letters on it. I said we wanted them to continue as they have in the past, but I wouldn’t go back a third time. And he [Cherwell] wrote me this letter …” (Morgenthau Diary, vol. 773) For Cherwell’s letter to Morgenthau on this subject, dated September 16, 1944, see post, p. 395.