868.24/106
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Controls (Green) to the Secretary of State
The Secretary: I called Mr. Philip Young, Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the President’s Liaison Committee, by telephone this afternoon and asked him what progress the Committee was making in its efforts to make arms available to the Greek Government.
Mr. Young said that this Government, the Greek Government, and the British Government were endeavoring to work out a triangular arrangement to supply the Greeks with the thirty planes which [Page 599] they wished to obtain immediately. Under this arrangement, the British would furnish the Greeks immediately with thirty British Defiant planes—the type which the Greeks are already using; the British would be recompensed later by receiving thirty Curtiss–Wright P–40’s now on order by this Government. Mr. Young said that this arrangement would be satisfactory both to this Government and to the Greek Government, and that it was hoped that the British would inform us of their agreement within the next day or two.
Mr. Young explained that, as far as the other arms and munitions desired by the Greek Government were concerned (see the list attached to my memorandum of a conversation with the Greek Minister on November 2 [12]), the agreement between this Government, the Greek Government, and the British Government was that the British would first determine which of the articles listed could be supplied to the Greeks from British stocks in Europe and Africa; that the British Purchasing Commission would then determine which of the remaining items could be supplied from orders already placed by the British in this country; and that the Liaison Committee would then endeavor to ascertain which of the items which still remain unaccounted for could be made available to the Greeks in this country without interference with our own defense program. Mr. Young said that there had been some delay in carrying out this agreement due to the fact that the Greek list mentioned above was full of errors so that the Greek Minister had been obliged to telegraph to Athens several times for clarification and correction of the list. The program would be carried out, however, as rapidly as possible.