861.24/6–1449
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador of the Soviet Union (Panyushkin)
Excellency: I have the honor to refer to your note No. 2 of January 11, 1949 explaining the basis of the action of your Government in making a further deduction of $1,300,000 from the amount of the payment of interest due from your Government under the post-war Lend-Lease Agreement of October 15, 1945. In this note you stated that Soviet organizations had suffered losses amounting to $1,300,000 or more as a result of the inability of your Government to obtain export licenses for material ordered in the United States. You further stated that the Soviet Government was withholding the sum of $1,300,000 from the interest payment due on July 1, 1948 as a reserve to protect the legal interests and to cover the losses of the Soviet organizations.
As explained in Mr. Lovett’s note of September 14, 1948,1 the Government of the United States cannot accept the action of your Government in deducting from the interest due any sum as compensation for damages claimed to have been incurred by your Government as a result of non-receipt of export licenses. The obligations of the Soviet Government under the Agreement of October 15, 1945 are firmly established by the terms of that Agreement, which contains no provision for modification of payments due thereunder by unilateral action of the Soviet Government. Accordingly, this Government still considers the Soviet Government to be in default in the amount of $1,300,000 in respect of the interest payment due on July 1, 1948.
In reiterating this position, I wish to assure your Excellency that this Department has given full consideration to the specific claims of the Soviet organizations which have been brought to the attention of this Government in accordance with the statement contained in your note of August 10, 1948.2 In the material presented by your Government in connection with these claims nothing has appeared which would justify connecting them in any way with the interest payments due under the Agreement of October 15, 1945.
Accept [etc.]
- Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. iv, p. 1010.↩
- Note No. 146, ibid., p. 1001.↩