Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, General: Political and Economic Matters, Volume II

840.50 UNRRA/8–945: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, August 9, 1945—2 p.m.
[Received 11:23 p.m.]

8010. For the Secretary, Acting Secretary and Acheson from Clayton. Thanks for the prompt response to my message outlining the problems raised by the Russian request for UNRRA assistance. We shall be guided by your views and will certainly seek to persuade the Soviets to withdraw their demand when other avenues of assistance are open to them. I think we must be prepared for Russian refusal to follow our recommendation since publicity already given may raise quite a point in prestige. I therefore wish to summarize the background of recent developments here in the event that we must make a decision to include Russia either as a competing claimant for the projected increase to contributions that we have in mind or the occasion of requesting even more funds for UNRRA than the one percent additional contribution would provide.

1. We met with the Russians Monday night⁴⁹ and outlined the views generally expressed in my 7910.⁵⁰ The Russians were obviously unwilling to commit themselves to UNRRA operations in Italy or Austria until their case was acted upon and in effect requested perfunctory clearance by the Resolution 23 [sub] committee. We assume that they have requested Moscow for instructions in view of our position as expressed at that meeting since they have not suggested any further conference on the subject.

2. We have had several conferences with the British and Canadians [in] which we have emphasized our anticipation of the difficulties that would be encountered in securing additional funds for UNRRA to meet Russian demands. The British of course are even more reluctant to contribute relief to Russia in view of their over all financial position.

3. Pearson⁵¹ stated that if the Soviets did not withdraw their request Canada would find it difficult to secure any additional UNRRA contribution if the Russian claim were to be rejected. While it is of course impractical at this stage to estimate the firmness of the British position I doubt that they would fail to go along if the whole future of UNRRA were at stake. Marris⁵² said he thought they would follow our lead when we reached a position. I do anticipate that they would urge that any Russian program must come within the additional one percent maximum contribution.

4. If the Russians intend with this request to open the door to proper supervision of UNRRA operations within Eastern Europe including their own country to a reasonable extent it is an important development. There is no evidence of this as yet but we were encouraged today to hear from them that they accepted our proposed resolution on new membership including the Argentine which we told them would not be presented if they were going to raise objections. We have not heard that they will attempt to meet our views on displaced persons and there has been insufficient discussion of past and proposed UNRRA operations relating to displaced persons to indicate the extent or nature of their criticisms.⁵³ Lehman informed me yesterday that Sergeev⁵⁴ had requested him to treat the Russian request as an additional requirement for new funds in his presentation of reports to the Council. Whether this indicates that the Russians remain firm in their position or whether they were seeking to avoid the impression of Russian needs being met at the expense of requirements of other claimants is a question.

5. It would be useful to have your views on Congressional reaction to approving funds for UNRRA as part of the relief pool within the maximum appropriation we have in mind. It may be very difficult and perhaps undesirable to eliminate Russia as a limited UNRRA beneficiary and I should want to be rather careful in suggesting to any other govt that public or Congressional opinion would resist direct relief to Russia unless you concur. [Clayton.]

Winant

49. August 6.
50. Dated August 6, p. 1003.
51. Lester B. Pearson, Canadian member of the UNRRA Council. As Chairman of the UNRRA Committee on Supplies, Mr. Pearson named the members of the Resolution 23 subcommittee.
52. Adam D. Marris, member of the United Kingdom delegation, Third UNRRA Council.
53. See telegram 8016, August 9, from London, p. 1009, and telegram 6842, August 13, to London, p. 1012.
54. Vasili Alekseevich Sergeev, Chief of the Soviet delegation, Third UNRRA Council.