800.24/1507
Major General Lucius D. Clay of the War Department General Staff to the Adviser on Political Relations (Murray)
Dear Mr. Murray: In your letter of 1 December 1943 you suggested the advisability of broadening the War Department directive to General Connolly to permit him to give technical assistance to the Iranian Government when possible without interference to the movement of supplies to Russia.
As I have advised Mr. Winant,18 it was believed desirable to hold this question in abeyance pending the completion of the recent Teheran Conference. It is my understanding that arrangements were made then at Mr. Landis’ request for some assistance from General Connolly in the agricultural field.19
[Page 309]We are now proceeding to obtain General Connolly’s views on the broader question so that we may advise you in full. Reply to your suggestion will be made at an early date.
Sincerely yours,
- Frederick G. Winant, Adviser, Eastern Hemisphere Division, Department of State.↩
- A final decision on this matter apparently had been made by President Roosevelt at Cairo about December 6, 1943. As a result, the Army in mid-February authorized the assignment of 27 officers and men from the Persian Gulf Service Command (PGSC) to the services of Floyd F. Shields, American Director-General of the Iranian Road Transport Administration. Mr. Landis hailed the move as “essential to the realization … of the objectives of the Tehran declaration …” For subsequent developments regarding this situation, see pp. 339–340, and 346. The whole problem of Army cooperation in United States aid to Iran is treated in T. H. Vail Motter, The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia in the official Army history United States Army in World War II: The Middle East Theater (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1952), pp. 435 ff.↩