810.24/2–2747

The Director of the Office of Financial and Development Policy (Ness) to the Chief of the Lend-Lease Fiscal Operations, Treasury Department (Cavanaugh)

My Dear Mr. Cavanaugh: This is in reference to your letter, dated August 21, 1946,7 to Mr. Cardozo, Director of the Legal Division, Office of the Foreign Liquidation Commissioner, a copy of which has been referred to this office.

In your letter it is noted that the lend-lease agreements with five of the American republics (Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Paraguay)8 provide for payment of definite amounts, with no provision that payments should not be larger than proportional to deliveries.

It is the policy of this Department, however, and has been from the time of the initial billings, that calculations of sums due and requests for payment in every case are to be based on the ratio of specified total payments to specified transfer ceilings and the application of this ratio to the value of actual deliveries, i.e., that payments shall be proportional to deliveries. Consequently, we regard only sums proportional to actual deliveries as being due.

The Office of American Republics Affairs and the Office of the Foreign Liquidation Commissioner have seen this letter and concur in the position set forth above.

Sincerely yours,

Norman T. Ness
  1. Not printed,
  2. For texts of agreements with Cuba, November 7, 1941; Dominican Republic, August 2 and August 6, 1941; Haiti, September 16, 1941; Nicaragua, October 16, 1941; and Paraguay, September 20, 1941; see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. vii, pp. 122, 253, 319, 410, and 480. respectively.