868.00/3–1547
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The British Ambassador called at his request and handed me the attached Aide-Mémoire.1 He said that his understanding of the term, “Angellopoulos monies in London” at the end of paragraph 2 was that it referred to some funds owed by the British Government to the Greek Government for materials supplied British forces in Greece.2 The Ambassador said that he assumed that this message was sent after he had informed the Foreign Office that the Department was not ready to agree that any advances made by the British would be reimbursed directly or indirectly out of funds made available by the United States.
The Ambassador inquired whether he could say that the United States Government agreed to a communication to the Greeks along the line outlined above. I said that we had no objection to the British so informing the Greeks. We did not and could not commit ourselves to any date as of which this Government would be prepared to start advancing funds to the Greeks. This had to await the action of Congress. I did not see that the arrangements between the Greeks and the British contained in this message affected us.
- Infra.↩
- In a note of March 18, the British Ambassador advised Mr. Acheson that the Angellopoulos monies were the sterling equivalent in London of the drachmae provided for British troops in Greece by the Greek Government. The Greek claim on British sterling resulted from an agreement between the British and Greek Governments on October 17, 1944, commonly referred to as the “Angellopoulos Agreement”. (868.51/3–1847)↩