861.24/3–1946
The Chargé of the Soviet Union (Novikov) to the Secretary of State
Sir: I acknowledge receipt of your note of February 18, 1946 in which, in connection with the preparations for the forthcoming negotiations with the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the Lend-Lease settlement, you request that an inventory be submitted to the State Department of Lend-Lease supplies in the possession or under the control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the end of the war, and also ask for information concerning the powers of the Soviet Purchasing Commission at the present time in connection with the letter of the Chairman of the Soviet Purchasing Commission, General Rudenko, of January 22, 1946 to the Deputy of the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Willard Thorp.
The reply of the Soviet Government on the question of the settlement of Lend-Lease obligations is contained in my personal note to you of March 15, 1946 concerning a number of questions raised in your note of February 21, 1946.
With reference to the question of the powers of the Soviet Purchasing Commission at the present time which arose in your mind in connection with General Rudenko’s letter of February [January] [Page 833] 22, 1946 to Mr. Thorp, I wish to point out that a misunderstanding has apparently arisen here because of the brevity of this letter which, by virtue thereof, was not properly understood.
It was General Rudenko’s intention to communicate the following in this letter:
Since the complete settlement of the question raised in Mr. Thorp’s letter of January 4, 1946 will undoubtedly require the participation not only of the Soviet Purchasing Commission but of other competent organs of the Soviet Government, in a similar manner to the procedure which was followed at the time of the conclusion of the supplementary Lend-Lease protocols, which supplemented the basic Lend-Lease Agreement of June 11, 1942, the respective proposals from the American side should have been transmitted through diplomatic channels and not through the Purchasing Commission. In connection with the foregoing, I wish to bring to your attention that the previous proposals of the Government of the United States of America for the conclusion of the Lend-Lease protocols were submitted through the Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Washington.
It is self-evident that the competence and status of the Soviet Purchasing Commission have not been changed and continue up to the present time on the same scale as they were defined in Ambassador Litvinov’s note of March 4, 1942 and confirmed in the reply of the Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Sumner Welles, of March 5, 1942.13
Please accept [etc.]
- Neither printed; but see memorandum of a conversation with Litvinov on March 2, 1942, and footnote 72, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. iii, p. 696.↩