868.51/4–845: Telegram
President Roosevelt to the British Prime Minister (Churchill)5
737. 1) I recognize the force of the observations on the Russian angle in your 9326 and agree that it might be better not to go forward with a tripartite economic mission at the present time. On the other hand I think it would be a mistake to set up a bilateral mission. This would look as though we, for our part, were disregarding the Yalta decision for tripartite action in liberated areas7 and might easily be [Page 208] interpreted as indicating that we consider the Yalta decisions as no longer valid. Such is certainly not the case, as you know, and I therefore feel that we must be careful not to do anything that would weaken the effectiveness of our efforts to get the Russians to honor these decisions on their side.
2) Our Ambassador at Athens recently put up to us, at the instance of Mr. Leeper,8 the suggestion of a joint Anglo-American committee of experts, responsible to our two Embassies, to advise the Greek Government on financial and economic policies. Having the above considerations in mind, we told him we could not approve, a formal set-up of this kind, but that the Embassy experts should of course continue to keep in close touch with their British colleagues and the Greek authorities and offer the latter such informal advice and assistance as might be called for. We have agreed with your people to accept the Greek Government’s invitations to you and to us to send transportation experts to Greece.9 This is a very specific situation where a coordinated recommendation is essential, since there will be a joint interest in the supply of any equipment necessary to get transportation going again in Greece. Our people are also doing all they can to help UNRRA to do a good job in Greece.
3) The Greeks have approached us informally for help and we are anxious to give them what economic support we can. We have suggested that they send a competent supply mission to Washington to present their claims to our supply agencies. While it seems impracticable at the moment to set up an economic mission in Greece on a tripartite or bilateral basis, I think it might be helpful if I send Donald Nelson out anyway, with a few assistants, to make a survey of the needs and possibilities for me. I shall discuss this with him and keep you informed of any developments.
- Drafted by the Department of State; on April 8, the White House notified the Acting Secretary of State, by memorandum, that the message had been approved and sent to the Prime Minister.↩
- Dated April 3, p. 205.↩
- A Declaration on Liberated Europe was included in the communiqué issued at the end of the Yalta Conference on February 11, 1945; for text, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, pp. 968, 971–973.↩
- Sir Reginald W. A. Leeper, British Ambassador in Greece.↩
- In note 5658, February 17, 1945, to the Embassy in Greece, the Greek Foreign Office requested the United States Government to send a mission to study the railway and road system and port facilities of Greece, which had suffered almost total destruction during enemy occupation, and the synchronization of land communications with sea and air navigation. An identical note was sent to the British Embassy in Greece. The request was agreed to by the American and British Governments and on May 23, 1945, the Joint Transportation Facilities Mission to Greece (called the Greek Transportation Facilities Mission by the British) held its first meeting at Athens. Brig. F. J. Biddulph was Chief of the Mission and Col. Douglas H. Gillette, Deputy Chief, as well as Chief of the American Section. The preliminary conclusions of the Greek Transportation Facilities Mission were submitted to the American and British Ambassadors in Greece in a First Report, August 1945. The Report covering Interim Conclusions of the American Section of the Mission was prepared by Colonel Gillette in Washington on February 1, 1946. Neither report is printed.↩