740.0011 European War 1939/7–1244
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius)
Sir Ronald Campbell64 called upon me this afternoon at his request. He presented to me the attached aide-mémoire65 on the Turkish situation. In his opening remarks he apologized for dealing with the matter “in two bites rather than one”. After reading the memorandum I told him I thought there would be certain members of our Government who might now be willing to have Turkey actually declare war.
Relative to the section of the aide-mémoire that deals with the question of commitment on the part of the United States Government to supply munitions to the Turks, I reminded Sir Ronald of the position of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff last November. He recalled this decision and I indicated this would probably present a problem but that we would review the question with the Joint Chiefs tomorrow and give him a response as soon as possible. He stated that there was a great urgency and he had been warned from London that any leak on this matter might prove very embarrassing to all concerned.
He read aloud to me a cable he had just received from the Foreign Office recording a conversation that Eden had had with the Soviet Ambassador66 relative to the Soviet attitude toward Turkey entering the war. Sir Ronald volunteered to have this paraphrased and submit it to us tomorrow.