891.2311/2–851
The Secretary of State to the Indian Ambassador (Pandit)
Excellency: I have the honor to refer to a Note from the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim dated February 8, 1951,1 and to subsequent conversations [Page 2169] between Your Excellency and officers of the Department of State concerning the exceedingly difficult food situation in India and the request of the Government of India for ad hoc assistance during 1951 to obtain two million tons of food grains on special and easy terms.
I am gratified to inform Your Excellency that the President signed on June 15, 1951, an Act of Congress, a copy of which is enclosed,2 authorizing the Administrator for Economic Cooperation to provide emergency food relief assistance to India on credit terms. The maximum amount of credit that may be utilized for this purpose is $190,000,000 (the previously estimated cost of providing two million tons of grain free on board ship in United States ports) as specified by Section 4 (c) of the Act which provides:
“The assistance provided under this Act shall be for the sole purpose of providing food grains, or equivalents, to meet the emergency need arising from the extraordinary sequence of flood, drought and other conditions existing in India in 1950.”
I invite Your Excellency’s attention to two supplementary provisions of this Act. Section 6 enables the Administrator for Economic Cooperation to use additional funds available through June 30, 1952, to defray ocean freight charges on relief packages and supplies sent to India by private individuals and United States voluntary non-profit relief agencies. This provision will become effective if Your Excellency’s Government will undertake, in an appropriate bilateral agreement, to permit the entry of these packages and supplies free of Indian customs duty and to pay the costs of handling and transportation in India. The assumption of these costs by our two Governments would enable United States voluntary relief agencies, which have desired to be of greater assistance to the Indian people, to expand their programs. The Department of State and the Economic Cooperation Administration would welcome early negotiations with the Embassy to this end.3
Section 7 of the Act sets aside not more than $5,000,000 of the interest payable by the Government of India between December 31, 1952 [Page 2170] and January 1, 1957, for the use of the Department of State in promoting cultural interchange between the United States and India. This provision will facilitate the interchange of students, professors, other academic persons and technicians, and of books and equipment for higher education and research. The first part of the funds set aside under Section 7 will become available with the initial payment of interest.
Accept [etc.]
- See the editorial note, p. 2112.↩
- See P.L. 48, 82d Congress, India Emergency Food Aid Act of 1951, 65 Stat. 71. S. 872 had been passed by the Senate and presented to the President on June 12. For the President’s statement on signing the bill, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1951, p. 338, or Department of State Bulletin, July 2, 1951, p. 37. On the appropriation of funds, see P.L. 70, approved July 1, 1951, 65 Stat. 113. See also the President’s proclamation of June 19, 1951, authorizing the activation and operation of vessels for transportation of supplies under P.L. 48, 65 Stat. c19.↩
- For the text of the agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of India for duty-free entry and defrayment of inland transportation charges of relief supplies and packages, July 9, 1951, see United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (UST), vol. 2 (pt. 2), p. 1483. By this agreement, the Government of India was to admit without duty relief supplies donated through U.S. voluntary nonprofit relief agencies qualified under applicable regulations of the Economic Cooperation Administration.↩