893.24/6–145
The Assistant Secretary of State (Clayton) to the Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration (Crowley)
Dear Leo: I am gratified that you were successful in obtaining allocations totalling 45 million yards of cotton textiles for China for the third quarter of 1945. Foreign Economic Administration and the other war agencies deserve the utmost praise for this result.
I do not believe, however, that we would be realistic unless we recognized that the allocation of the textiles is simply the first step in the supply procedure. The next step, of course, is procurement here and in Mexico and Brazil, and in the solution of that problem you will agree there is less reason for optimism.
You will recall that out of 45 million yards to be made available to China, 22 million yards is to come from Brazil and Mexico and 23 million yards from the United States. I have sent cables to our Embassies in Mexico and Brazil,75 stressing the urgency of having Chinese requirements fulfilled in their entirety and requesting the Embassy to do everything possible to facilitate procurement by making proper representations to the Brazilian and Mexican Governments and by assisting your USCC Purchasing Mission in placing contracts.
[Page 1099]As far as procurement in the United States is concerned, I believe the practice is for Treasury Procurement to make the purchases under requisitions from Foreign Economic Administration. In that connection I am informed by the War Production Board that for the first quarter of 1945 allotments of only 50 percent of Foreign Economic Administration’s allocation of cotton textiles were issued for the general areas and only 26 percent for the liberated areas. This indicates difficulties in procurement, and I am therefore calling this to your attention with the thought in mind that we should place our Chinese orders as rapidly as possible with the mills so that we will not lose any part of the allocations.
Sincerely yours,
- Neither printed.↩