861.24/8–1849
The Under Secretary of State (Webb) to the Secretary of the Navy (Matthews)
My Dear Mr. Secretary: As you know, the first meeting of the experts who have been appointed by the United States and Soviet Governments to arrange the details of the return to the United States [Page 727] of three icebreakers and twenty-eight frigates transferred to the Soviet Union under the terms of the Lend-Lease Act, was held on Wednesday, August 10. A copy of the minutes of this meeting is enclosed.1
It is now necessary that this Government determine its position with respect to Soviet insistence that the icebreakers be returned to a port in west Germany and the frigates to a port in Hokkaido, Japan, rather than to Norfolk and to San Francisco as requested by this Government. It is felt by the Department that the following considerations should be held in mind in determining the position of this Government. The United States has been endeavoring to secure the return of the icebreakers for over three years. The first request was contained in a note to the Soviet Embassy dated July 26, 1946. The first formal request for the return of the frigates was in a note to the Soviet Embassy dated January 23, 1948, after an oral statement that their return was required under United States law made to the Soviet representatives on June 25, 1947,2 during the course of the settlement negotiations, and confirmed by an “Outline of Main Points of Settlement Proposed by the US Side” of the same date. As you know, these requests are based upon Article V of the Master Agreement which provides that the Soviet Government will return to the United States “such defense articles … as shall be determined by the President to be useful in the defense of the United States of America or the Western Hemisphere or to be otherwise of use to the United States of America.” Thus the urgency of the considerations under which this Government has demanded the return of these vessels has been made a matter of record in the most explicit terms, which have been repeatedly communicated to the Soviet Government.
While Article V of the Master Agreement does not state whether the deliveries of articles under its terms shall take place within the continental limits of the United States of America, it has nevertheless been construed by this Government, at its option, to have that meaning and, as you are aware, naval vessels, the return of which has been required of other recipients of lend-lease aid, and which have been needed by this Government for its own use, have in fact been delivered at ports of the continental United States. On the other hand the only vessels which have as yet been returned by the Soviet Government have been several tankers, not naval vessels, the return of which to ports outside of the continental United States was agreed to by this Government. It is felt that this precedent has necessarily carried weight with the Soviet Government in determining its position with [Page 728] respect to the vessels now in question and that it would make an adamant insistence by this Government on its present position appear unreasonable. In this connection your attention is invited to the fact that in its note of January 11, 1949, this Government stated its willingness to take delivery of the vessels either at Norfolk for vessels returned via the Atlantic or at San Francisco for vessels returned via the Pacific. In the Soviet Government’s answering note, received on June 26, 1949, however, no mention was made of the place of return of the vessels.
In the view of the Department of State the interests of this Government will be best served by approximately the following procedure. It is suggested that Soviet representatives be invited at the earliest possible moment to attend a second meeting and that at that meeting United States representatives should recapitulate the position of this Government with respect to the return of the vessels to ports in the continental United States in forceful terms but that at the conclusion of the meeting the United States representatives should state that in order to expedite action in the matter the United States will accept return of the icebreakers at a designated port in western Germany, in consideration of which it expects that the Soviet Government will reconsider its insistence upon the return of the frigates to a Japanese port. The meeting should then be closed with a US request that the Soviet representatives secure from their Government a reconsideration of its position in respect to the place of the delivery of the frigates.
The Department wishes to make clear, however, that if the Soviet reply to this request is in the negative it is felt that this Government should be prepared to accept delivery of the frigates in Japanese ports. The Department is of the opinion that this Government would be open to severe criticism in this country if it failed to take possession of vessels, the return of which it had repeatedly demanded with the greatest urgency, either because of insistence upon what might be publicly regarded as a technicality as to place of return, or because of an unwillingness to accept the additional costs involved in such delivery. The value of the vessels greatly exceeds the amount of any such additional cost, and it is assumed that the considerations on which the Navy Department has based its requirement for the return of the vessels, as expressed in letters dated May 6, 1946,3 and May 8, 19474 from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of State, outweigh the monetary considerations involved.
You, of course, appreciate the urgency of this matter and I should be happy to have your views at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely yours,
- For the minutes under reference, see p. 724.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. vi, p. 837.↩
- Ibid., 1947, vol. iv, p. 685.↩