Office of the Historian

838.24/3–2448

The Acting Secretary of State to the Embassy in Haiti

confidential
No. 44
Washington, April 16, 1948.

The Acting Secretary of State acknowledges the receipt of the Embassy’s airgram No. A–124 of March 1, 1948 and also Embassy’s despatch No. 135 dated March 24, 19481 concerning the full payment of the lend-lease indebtedness of the Government of Haiti.

For the information of the Officer in Charge and for the records of the Embassy there are transmitted herewith copies of a note from the Embassy of Haiti in Washington dated March 22, 1948,2—to which was attached a check in the amount of $33,000 in payment of the balance of the indebtedness under the “treaty” lend-lease account—and a copy of the “Department’s note of acknowledgement3 to the Embassy of Haiti in Washington dated as above together with a copy of Statement LL–152 which accompanied the note.

It will be noted that the attention of the Government of Haiti has been directed to the fact that this settlement relates only to defense [Page 594] aid transferred under the terms of the Lend-Lease Agreement and that outstanding unsettled accounts related to leased vessels and cash reimbursable transactions are subject to treatment apart from the lend-lease account in the matter of billing.

The Coast Guard Cutter, leased to Haiti under Charter Party Agreement, will be offered to the Government of Haiti at a very low price,—probably at $6,000. Billings for cash transactions are the responsibility of the Treasury Department and the latest information at hand does not change the figures given in the Department’s confidential instruction No. 25 of February 26, 1948.4 Should any change be reported to the Department the Embassy will be informed.

The good offices of the Embassy in the matter of the lend-lease settlement have proved very helpful to the Department.

  1. Neither printed; for the Department’s proposal concerning final settlement of the Haitian lend-lease responsibility, see airgram 287, December 29, 1947 by the Acting Secretary of State to the Embassy in Haiti, in Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. viii, p. 736.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Not printed; for the lend-lease agreement between the United States and Haiti, September 16, 1941, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. vii, p. 317.↩
  4. Not printed.↩
  5. Not printed.↩