Office of the Historian

103.9164: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, August 26, 1944.
[Received August 27—6 a.m.]

6964. For Morse, WSA, from Reed by Brown. Preliminary meetings with Allied nominees to Planning Committee, plus Speeken-brink for Dutch, was held this morning. Informal paper on scope of Planning Committee’s work generally following lines of our 6782 of August 21st [22nd] was presented. Copy is being sent you by air pouch. All agreed (a) that sub-committees of the Planning Committee be formed to deal with allocation of dry cargo ships and tankers [Page 687] ship warrants and arrangements for dealing with coastal and short sea trades and (b) that matter of freight rates should be taken up first in Planning Committee itself with a sub-committee to be formed later if necessary. Several Allies urged importance of beginning work promptly and expressed desire for concrete Anglo-American suggestions to guide discussions. We said we hoped to be able to present Anglo-American papers on the four subjects to be considered in sub-committees in the near future. Discussions in each sub-committee could begin upon receipt of such papers.

Allies were invited to nominate their members to the four subcommittees.

After the meeting Hurcomb68 suggested to Brown and Speeken-brink that chairmanship of the sub-committees might be divided between the nations represented on the Executive Board.

We would appreciate your comments, particularly advice on the following subjects:

1.
Name of American nominee to Planning Committee.
2.
Your decision on points discussed in our 6889 of August 24th.
3.
Names of American nominees to the four sub-committees of the Planning Committee.
4.
Your thoughts on how chairmanship of sub-committees should be handled.
5.
Your views on proposed paper dealing with allocation of dry cargo ships.

Report of meeting is being sent by air pouch. We are cabling separately on one other non-procedural point which was raised. [Reed.]

Winant
  1. Sir Cyril Hurcomb, Director General, British Ministry of War Transport.↩