861.24/3–145
Memorandum by the Executive of the President’s Soviet Protocol Committee (York) to the Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Durbrow)
Subject: Ambassador Gromyko’s Request for Inclusion in the Fourth Protocol of a Provision for $300,000,000 worth of Industrial Equipment to be developed after July, 1945.
It is suggested that Mr. Grew in talking with the Ambassador on the above subject make reference to the fact that this Government submitted through Mr. Hopkins24 on January 5, 1945 to General Rudenko25 an invitation to file requirements for the Fifth Protocol to begin July 1, 1945. As yet, we have had no indication of what these requirements will be. We feel it unnecessary to include any provision in the Fourth Protocol relating to the supply of items under the Fifth Protocol. We shall, of course, consider the desirability of accepting requisitions in advance of the commencement of the Fifth Protocol, when we have determined what the requirements are and the extent to which we are prepared to meet them.
For your background information, may I remind you that in the Third Protocol we provided for the acceptance of requisitions for industrial equipment, not to exceed $300,000,000 to be delivered after the end of the Third Protocol. This was done in order to assure an even flow of production. We realized that the industrial equipment program would continue throughout the Fourth Protocol period and we decided that under the circumstances it would be desirable to prepare the programs well in advance and to begin production. As it happened the U. S. S. R. was very much delayed in presenting its programs under this provision, and for that reason production was delayed beyond what we had intended.
In preparing the Fourth Protocol we realized that the war was considerably farther advanced and that it could not be certain that industrial equipment would play as large a part in the supply program in the future as it had in the past. We understood, however, the need for an even flow of production and we provided in the preamble to Group V—Machinery and Equipment on page 24 of the Proposed U. S. Schedules to the Fourth Protocol that “on the basis of a continuing review the U. S. will from time to time inform the U.S.S.R. as to the extent to which it will consider any orders under this program.”
[Page 984]In the event the Fifth Protocol requirements, when they are received, indicate that the U.S.S.R. has an industrial equipment program which we would feel related closely to the war and which we could supply, we should certainly consider the acceptance of requisitions before the beginning of the Fifth Protocol Period. We do not feel, however, that it is desirable to write these provisions into the Fourth Protocol, or to make any statement regarding future industrial equipment programs which might be regarded as binding.
Major General, U.S. Army