855.24/3–2945
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews)
| Participants: | Baron de Gruben, Counselor of the Belgian Embassy, |
| M. Goffin, Counselor of the Belgian Embassy, and | |
| Mr. Matthews |
Baron Gruben called this afternoon at his request in order to present his successor (Gruben has been transferred back to Brussels). Baron Gruben soon brought the conversation around to pending negotiations for a Belgian lend-lease agreement. He spoke with a little bitterness along the following lines: Belgium had furnished the Allied armies the equivalent of some $400,000,000 in supplies and services in the nature of reverse lend-lease since our military operations [Page 96] in Belgium began. In return for this, Belgium had received no lend-lease and had been unable to obtain from our War Department any accounting of the amount to be credited her as troop paid dollars. (This data was promised for March 15 but has now been put off, Gruben said, by the War Department until June 15 without explanation.) Negotiations for a lend-lease agreement were begun on January 15, but so far without result. The Belgian Embassy well understood our desire to deal with the French negotiators first, on the theory that the French agreement might establish a model for our agreement with Belgium. The French agreement, however, was signed on February 2822 and still there has been no action on our side to expedite the Belgian negotiations. However, said Gruben, if the French Agreement is a precedent, the Belgian agreement will not be retroactive, and with the war drawing so close to its end it is difficult to see what benefits Belgium will acquire. He emphasized his claim that Belgium’s $400,000,000 contribution to the Anglo-American armies mentioned above was considerably in excess of the French total and that Belgium was getting far less generous treatment than France. All of this, he said, would have a particularly unfortunate effect on the psychology of his country in face of the serious difficulties confronting it. However unjust it may appear, a Belgium liberated by the Allies, in contrast to the last war, is now associated in the people’s minds with far worse material conditions than there were existing under German occupation. This, he said, was bound to have an unfortunate effect.
I told Baron Gruben that I had been away for some weeks until recently, and was not familiar with the Belgian negotiations but would be glad to make inquiries. In reply to my question as to reasons for the delay, he said that although none had been given him officially, he gathered it was due to a difference of views as to the terms of the agreement between State, FEA23 and Treasury. I said in conclusion that while I could well understand and sympathize with the feelings of his Government, I could not but point out that the return Belgium has received for the $400,000 he mentioned is not inconsiderable: his country has been liberated and defended by American soldiers, many of whom have lost their lives, and I felt that this all-important factor should not be lost sight of. He readily admitted the truth of this, adding that this was of course putting the matter “on an entirely different level”.
- For text of Agreement, see Department of State Executive Agreement Series No. 455, or 59 Stat. (pt. 2) 1304; for documentation regarding negotiations leading to the Agreement, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iii, pp. 748 ff.↩
- Foreign Economic Administration.↩