800.6363/1536: Telegram

The British Prime Minister ( Churchill ) to President Roosevelt

I have been watching lately with increasing misgivings official telegrams about the oil business. I am very glad you have consented to delay for a few days the publication of a purely American statement. You may be sure I should only wish to arrive at what is fair and just between our two countries. Surely this can be patiently considered between us before it is flung into public discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. A wrangle about oil would be a poor prelude for the tremendous joint enterprise and sacrifice to which we have bound ourselves.

2. Halifax has explained to me the difficulties of the situation on your side. We too have our difficulties which may become very formidable in Parliament.

[Page 101]

There is apprehension in some quarters here that the United States has a desire to deprive us of our oil assets in the Middle East on which among other things, the whole supply of our Navy depends. This sensitiveness has, of course, been greatly aggravated by the five Senators.6 I am sure these suspicions are entirely unfounded so far as the Government of the United States is concerned. When, however, it is announced that you are to open a Conference upon oil in Persia and the Middle East and that the Secretary of State is to lead the American delegation, the whole question will become one of the first magnitude in Parliament. It will be felt that we are being hustled and may be subjected to pressure. I am sure to be asked for an assurance that the question of no transfer of property will arise and I shall be unable to give such an assurance. Moreover, great expectations will certainly be aroused in the United States by a conference on oil opened under your auspices. Will there not be increasing pressure upon you from those elements in the United States which are least friendly to us to gratify those expectations at our expense?

3. International Conference at highest level should surely be carefully prepared beforehand and I would beg you to consider whether it would not be more advisable to proceed as a first step for official and technical talks on the lines which had, I understand, already been agreed to between the State Department and ourselves.

  1. Reference is apparently to the Special Senate Committee to Investigate Petroleum Resources, known also as the Maloney Committee.