740.0011 European War 1939/3050: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Bullitt)
378. In your talks with the appropriate French officials you may point out that for us to sell or lease some of our old destroyers would [Page 224] as a practical matter involve submitting the question to Congress which for a variety of reasons is not considered opportune. Even were the Congressional hurdle successfully passed it would take at the very least 6 weeks or more to prepare a destroyer for an ocean voyage, to send it across the Atlantic, to allow time for a foreign crew to familiarize itself with the workings of its machinery, et cetera. More important, however, is the fact that the United States has no excess of tonnage and in certain contingencies which we cannot afford to ignore, involving questions of hemispheric defense and our obligations in the Pacific, there would be an actual shortage of destroyers for our own needs.
With regard to airplanes our authorities are going to do everything possible to make available the latest types and the maximum number consistent with our own absolute national safety.
As a thought that might be pursued further by the French we suggest the possibility of wide-scale purchase of planes in this country now held in private hands. We recognize that they would be neither fast nor uniform in type, yet in the present desperate shortage which you describe they might be better than nothing and could certainly be shipped without any delay.