840.50/9-1744
The Secretary of State to the President1
Memorandum for the President
I note from your record of conversation with the Prime Minister on September 14, 19442 that lend-lease aid during the war with Japan will exceed, in food, shipping, et cetera, the strategic needs of Great Britain in carrying on that war and will, to that extent, be devoted to maintaining British economy. Would it not be well to make clear to the Prime Minister at this time that one of the primary considerations of the Committee,3 in determining the extent to which lend-lease might exceed direct strategic needs, would be the soundness of the course adopted by the British Government with a view to restoring its own economy, particularly with regard to measures taken to restore the flow of international trade? My thought on this, which applies to financial assistance through lend-lease or in other forms, is developed in the last enclosure, of which a copy is attached, to my memorandum to you of September 8, 1944.4
- A copy of this memorandum was sent to Hopkins and is filed in the Hopkins Papers. It is possible that Hopkins took the ribbon copy to Hyde Park with him for delivery to Roosevelt.↩
- Ante, p. 344.↩
- i.e., the committee on lend-lease questions the creation of which was agreed to by Roosevelt and Churchill at Quebec. See ante, pp. 346, 468.↩
- The attachment was a copy of annex 10 to Hull’s memorandum of September 6, 1944, which had been sent to Roosevelt on September 8 under cover of a further memorandum. For the text of annex 10, see ante, p. 172.↩
- The source text bears the following manuscript endorsement: “Approved … by telephone by the Secretary, who authorized us to initial the original for him. T[heodore] C A[chilles].”↩