891.24/370: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Iran (Dreyfus)
123. Kuibyshev’s 241, March 8 to Department regarding Soviet complaint against Kuniholm and Vivian. Department assumes you will consult Kuniholm in this connection, and we shall, of course, await your comments before considering a reply.
Please also report whether the grain situation in Azerbaijan, as described in Kuniholm’s letters to you of February 1 and 10,41 will affect the wheat import program presented by Sheridan (your 44, January [Page 343] 13 and 144, February 942) and approved by British and American governments. Does Sheridan still expect to get supplies for Tehran from Azerbaijan, and if not may we expect any request for additional imports?
Present program, on which Department is working in collaboration with British and other agencies of this Government, contemplates total deliveries to Iran of about 30,000 tons wheat, plus some 25,000 tons additional for civilian employees of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Persian Gulf Service Command and Persia and Iraq Command. This may require some reduction in shipments to Soviet Union. We can give no assurance that quantity for Iran could be increased, but in connection with possible reply to Soviet complaint, we should like to have as accurate a picture as possible of the present grain situation. Any increase in Iranian wheat imports would almost certainly be at the expense of planned shipments to Russia, and we may wish to point this out to Soviet Government as an argument against its purchases of Azerbaijan grain.