Office of the Historian

861.24/8–2145

Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Lend-Lease and Surplus War Property (Maxwell)

[Washington, August 21, 1945.]

Lend-Lease Termination

The Soviet Protocol Committee on August 17 sent out orders to the effect that loadings of Soviet ships in United States ports were to be stopped at once. Loadings of United States ships were also to be stopped and their cargoes discharged. In short, so far as practicable, transfers of lend-lease cargo to the U.S.S.R. were halted at the ports on August 17.

With respect to other lend-lease countries transfers are to be stopped only as of V–J Day.93 The outcome is, therefore, that the U.S.S.R. is being treated on a different basis from other countries. [Page 1033] When I inquired from John Hazard94 about this, he informed me that the decision was taken deliberately and probably was part of a general squeeze now being put on the U.S.S.R. Certain reasons can, however, be alleged for the discrimination, such as the fact that the U.S.S.R. does not provide us with reverse lend-lease and the fact that the U.S.S.R. does not assist us with redeployment.

  1. The signing of surrender by Japan took place September 2; for documentation on the Japanese surrender, see vol. vi , section under Japan entitled “Surrender of Japan …”, Part I.↩
  2. Secretary of the President’s Soviet Protocol Committee.↩