Office of the Historian

868.20/3–447

Memorandum by General James K. Crain to the Assistant Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Jernegan)

secret
[Washington,] March 4, 1947.

Subject: Résumé of action to date with respect to making available military supplies to Greece.

1.
General Crain as representative of A–H was designated by Mr. Henderson on February 28, 1947 as officer responsible for the implementation of sub-paragraph 5d, page 2, of memorandum to Mr. Henderson of February 27, 1947.
2.
General Crain decided to use the Rearmaments Subcommittee of SWNCC as the coordinating agency to effect the above mentioned directive. This subcommittee was called together at 4:00 p. m. the same date with Mr. John B. Howard,1 Le, attending the meeting.
The Rearmament Subcommittee membership comprises an officer from the Plans and Operations Division of the War Department General Staff, an officer from the Army Air Forces, an officer from the office of the Commander in Chief of the Navy, [Chief of Naval Operations?] and an officer from A–H as steering member. An officer [Page 82] from the Service, Supply, and Procurement Division of the War Department General Staff attends all meetings as an adviser.
3.
At the meeting the following points arose:
a)
Mr. Howard was requested to draft legislation in two parts:
(1)
Broad and general authority under which the President might authorize procurement and transfer of military supplies to the government of any country whose defense he deems vital to the security of the United States, but such action would not reduce the funds appropriated for the Armed Forces of the United States.
(2)
Specific appropriations to meet the Greek requirements.
Note: After considering the entire legislative program it has been decided to embody the military supplies and personnel legislative requirements into one overall act.
b)
The War Department member agreed that the War Department would:
(1)
Inquire of the British Staff mission (a) as to the completeness and correctness of their preliminary list, and (b) as to the extent of United States matériel, if any, included as “Available from British Sources” (this in connection with maintenance computations).
(2)
Furnish General Crain by 10:00 a. m., Tuesday, March 4, 1947, an estimate of approximate costs:
(a)
for equipment to be provided initially.
(b)
for one years maintenance of
(1)
the initial equipment to be provided, and
(2)
the U.S. equipment already in Greek hands.
Note: See attached statement.2
c)
The War Department representative stated that for obvious reasons military discussions by the Combined Chiefs of Staff would be informal, and that the State Department would be the proper agency to resolve on a governmental level discussion of the extent of the participation to which the United States would be committed and the extent to which the British would continue.
d)
It was agreed that formal and official requests for transfer of military supplies should come through diplomatic channels. General Crain undertook to obtain a decision on this point. Reference is made to memorandum of February 28 from General Crain to Mr. Henderson3 on this subject.
e)
General Crain agreed to ascertain what FLC credit, if any, remains for Greece.
Note: There is ample credit remaining and more can be provided if necessary (UE—Mr. McGhee4).
[Annex]

Memorandum of Cost Relative to United States Military Supplies To Be Furnished Greek Government Based Upon British Information5

1.
The War Department does not yet possess complete information as to the availability of the items listed by the British as being necessary to equip the Greeks.
2.
The following assumptions were made in estimating the cost of furnishing all the items on the British list, including replacement, maintenance, and ammunition for this initial equipment and also maintenance and replacement for the United States equipment already held by the Greeks. The replacement and maintenance is for a period of one year.

Assumptions:

a)
That none of the equipment is now in possession of the War Department and that consequently all of it must be procured.
b)
That by reason of the relatively small amounts to be procured as compared with war time procurement quantities and because of the post war increase in material cost and rates of wages military items now procured would cost twice the war time figure.
c)
The replacements required were based on figures obtained during the actual operations in the European theater of war.
d)
The maintenance facilities will be poor and the personnel engaged in maintenance will be untrained. For this reason and based on other experiences the maintenance costs have been fixed at twenty per cent of the purchase cost of the items.

Based upon the above assumptions the estimated costs are as follows:

a) For new equipment to be furnished by the U.S.— $11,000,000.
b) One year’s replacement, maintenance, and ammunition for the foregoing initial equipment— 22,000,000.
c) Maintenance and replacement for one year for the U.S. equipment already held by the Greeks— 2,500,000.
Total $35,500,000.

It is considered that the above total is an outside figure. That figure will be reduced if surplus equipment becomes available as it will be [Page 84] sold for a much lower figure than the cost of the same item estimated under the above assumptions.

  1. Assistant Legal Adviser for International Organization Affairs.↩
  2. Infra.↩
  3. Not printed; it noted the recommendation of the SWNCC Subcommittee on Rearmament that requests for definite quantities of military equipment should be received from the United States Ambassador in the requesting country. In a memorandum of March 3 to General Crain Mr. Jernegan replied that Mr. Henderson agreed with the recommendation but suggested that the “diplomatic representative in Washington of the foreign government should also be regarded as an acceptable channel for communication of such requests.” (800.24/2–2847)↩
  4. George C. McGhee, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.↩
  5. Drafted by General Crain on March 4.↩