861.24/8–3149

The Acting Secretary of the Navy ( Kimball ) to the Under Secretary of State ( Webb )

secret

My Dear Mr. Webb: Your letter of 18 August 1949 requested my comments regarding the disagreement with respect to ports of delivery in present negotiations for the return of U.S. vessels on loan to Russia. There is operational need by the U.S. Navy for the three icebreakers on lease to Russia. The primary objective in regard to the return of other vessels is to reduce the war potential of a possible adversary. Bearing this in mind, the reasons set forth to your letter favoring a waiver of the U.S. demand for return of the vessels in U.S. continental ports to avoid a stalemate in present negotiations, first in regard to the icebreakers, and second, if necessary, with respect to the frigates, are appreciated.

The expenditure of an estimated $600,000 or more of U.S. Navy funds, not subject to reimbursement from sale of recovered vessels, to provide for the return of these vessels from ports in Japan and Germany in accession to what is considered an unreasonable Soviet position, would not appear to be justified. The waiver of the requirement to return these vessels to U.S. continental ports would also establish an undesirable precedent in the recovery of other U.S. vessels still on loan to the USSR and other countries. Such a concession would also be inconsistent with our past policy wherein the U.S. has insisted, upon return of leased vessels to continental U.S. ports by the lessee unless the U.S. elected to dispose of them abroad. You will recall it was with extreme reluctance that the British acquiesced to the U.S. position.

The Navy Department agrees, however, that recapture of the vessels concerned, by whatever means, is an overriding consideration and that if accessions to the Russian position with respect to ports of delivery represent unavoidable means to attain our ends we concur in the procedure outlined in paragraphs four of your letter; namely, that at the next meeting the U.S. representatives forcefully recapitulate this Government’s position with respect to the return of the vessels to ports in the continental U.S.: but if at the end of the meeting the Soviet position remains unchanged, the U.S. representatives should, in substance, state that in order to expedite action in the matter the U.S. will accept return of the icebreakers at a designated port in Western Germany, in consideration of which it expects the Soviet Government will reconsider its insistence upon the return of the frigates to a Japanese port and acquiesce to the U.S. desire to effect the delivery in San Francisco.

Sincerely yours,

Dan A. Kimball