-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
>From Major Jordan's Diaries
George Racey Jordan�1952 All rights reserved
LCCN 52-6448
Western Islands
395 Concord Avenue
Belmont. Massachusetts 02178
PRINTING HISTORY
Harcourt, Brace edition published 1952
Free Enterprise edition published 1958
American Opinion edition published 1961
The Americanist Library edition published 1965
170pps � out-of-print
--[8]--
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Look at Lend-Lease
In his Twenty-First Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations, President
Truman says: "Total Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union amounted to $9.5
billions."[1] It is this figure of nine and one-half billions, covering
shipments only,[*] that I intend to examine.[ * The figure of eleven billions
for Russian Lend-Lease, which is generally cited, includes services as well
as shipments or goods transferred. For example, we spent $127 million for
"servicing and repairs to ships"; this would appear in the eleven billion
figure but not in the nine and one-half billion figure covering what we
actually shipped to Russia, which alone is under discussion in this chapter.]
I am sure that most people are under the impression that by far the greater
amount of Russian Lend-Lease shipments were munitions. But from the
Government's own figures in the Twenty-First Report, we learn that the
contrary is true. The lesser part, or 49%, was for munitions. The greater
part, or 51%, was for non-munitions! Here are the figures:
Munitions $4,651,582,000 49%
Non-
Munitions 4,826,084,000 51%
TOTAL $9,477,666,000 100%
What exactly is meant by "munitions" and how much did we spend in each
classification? The Twenty-First Report breaks down all Russian munitions
under Lend-Lease into these five classifications, with the following
expenditures:
All Munitions
1. Aircraft and parts $1,652,236,000
2. Motor vehicles and parts 1,410,616,000
3. Ordnance and ammunition 814,493,000
4. Tanks and parts 478,398,000
5. Water craft* 295,839,000
TOTAL $4,651,582,000 [2]
[ *In addition to a merchant fleet, we gave the Russians 581 naval vessels.
Though they agreed to return all the ships at the conclusion of war, they are
still holding most of them. Among the few returned: the radar-equipped light
cruiser Milwaukee, 4 frigates, and a couple of badly used icebreakers. The
original list included 77 minesweepers, 105 landing craft, 103 subchasers, 28
frigates, 202 torpedo boats, 4 floating drydocks, 4 250-ton pontoon barges, 3
icebreakers, 15 river tugs, and the light cruiser.]
Few citizens, if any, would cavil at the sums expended in any of the
foregoing categories. Most, like myself, would probably say "Well spent!" But
now let's take a look at the greater category, the 51% of non-munitions. We
find that they break down into:
All Non-Munitions
Petroleum Products $ 111,075,000
Agricultural Products 1,674,586,000
Industrial Materials & Products 3,040,423,000
TOTAL $4,826,084,000[3]
Since we gave the Russians planes, tanks, ships and motor vehicles, it is
easy enough to grant that "Petroleum Products," the necessary oil and gas and
fuel, are a justifiable wartime expenditure. Though the Government does not
do this, to my mind the $111,075,000 could logically be included under
"Munitions."
But what about the rest of this greater part of Lend-Lease? In the spirit of
humanity, let us pass over the enormous figure of $1,4674,586,000 for
"Agricultural Products," even though we never got so much as a formal "thank
you" from the Russian people or their leaders, and even though the
dislocations and shortages caused in our own domestic economy by these
tremendous shipments of foodstuffs are only too vivid in our memories.
There still remains the largest figure of all, $3,040,423,000. We now
discover that one-third of the whole of our nine and one-half billions of
Russian Lend-Lease comes under the heading of "Industrial Materials and
Products."
It is this category which conceals a multitude of sins, run-ning the
gamut from such military secrets as uranium and other atomic bomb
ingredients, down to the Moscow amuse-ment park which I will show you was
paid for by Lend--Lease. And under which of President Truman's four main
headings�Munitions, Petroleum, Agricultural, or Industrial- could the
following items legitimately be listed?
Cigarette cases Fishing tackle
Phonograph Dolls
records Bank vaults
Household Ladies' compacts
furnishings Sheet music
Lipsticks, Playground
perfumes equipment
Yet these are things which we sent to Russia under LendLease, as I shall
shortly show you in detail. And just to mention at this point several other
fantastic items, we also sent pianos and other musical instruments; antique
furniture; calendars; 13,328 sets of teeth; toothbrushes, of course; women's
jewelry, etc., etc. Yet the Lend-Lease Act specifically excluded "goods
furnished for relief and rehabilitation purposes"!
Are these items listed in the President's Twenty-First Report? You can bet
your life they aren't. The Twenty-First Report has only general statements
and the grand totals I have quoted.
Where can one find a list of the specific items of Lend-Lease shipped to
Russia? Not in any Government publication. If you go to the Library of
Congress, or write to the Superintendent of Documents for Lend-Lease figures,
you will get Department of State Publication No. 2759, entitled Soviet Supply
Protocols.[4]
This booklet of 156 pages seems comprehensive. It has an account of the four
big Lend-Lease agreements or "protocols" arrived at between October, 1941 to
June, 1945 at conferences in Moscow, Washington, London, and Ottawa
respectively. It has all kinds of headings and sub-headings about Soviet
"requirements," but after a good deal of frustrating attempts at analysis,
you find the loop-hole statement that the booklet does "not indicate the
extent to which materials were actually delivered to the Soviet Union." And
where do they refer you for this information? To the Twenty-First Report,
which has a "Partial List of Goods Shipped"�only 28 items! 5 After bouncing
back and forth between the Soviet Supply Protocols with its unanalyzable
figures and lack of "actual deliveries," and the incomplete figures of the
Twenty-First Report, the knowledge-seeking citizen finally asks himself:
"Whom do they think they're fooling?"
Fortunately, I have the Russians' own figures. That's where the items listed
above come from. The lists compiled by the Russians are crystal clear. There
is no legal gobbledygook, no prattle about "protocols." Instead there is the
name of each item, the quantity, and the cost-just like that!
The Russians reveal that under Lend-Lease they received all kinds of
supplies which can be found in no published Government record. My own
favorite item went over in 1944. There it is, listed all by itself (see
reproduction on page 79 of this edition) as "Tobacco pipe, one, $10." For
what person would the entire machinery of Lend-Lease make available one pipe?
Maybe Joseph Stalin wanted to test, for himself, the subtler resources of
Lend-Lease. In any event, there it is.
As far as I know, these Russian figures have never been made available. I
consider them the core of this book and I include them in the following
chapter in full. They deserve endless study and examination. Small businesses
that found wartime shortages severe to the point of stopping production, will
be amazed to learn how many "scarce" items were lavishly supplied to Russia.
Housewives will be aghast at the quantities of butter we denied ourselves and
sent to a people which used it for greasing purposes. Chemical and metal
experts, tool machinists, other specialists in many fields will find here the
facts and figures which affected them in wartime.
Atomic materials were only one of many things that Moscow's friends in
Washington sent along to Russia via LendLease, in violation of the spirit and
letter of the law, in defiance of our country's security and safety.
The United States master Lend-Lease agreement with Russia declared: "The
Government of the United States of America will continue to supply the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics with such DEFENSE articles, DEFENSE services,
and DEFENSE information as the President of the United States of America
shall authorize to be transferred or provided."
Under the Lend-Lease law the President had full power to decide what defense
assistance the Russians were to get. He delegated that power to Harry
Hopkins, with the result that in addition to defense supplies, the Russians
got whatever they asked for, unless someone lower in the hierarchy tried to
prevent it. Take the case of copper.
American copper resources became so critical during the war that bus bars of
the metal, on electric panel-boards, were replaced with conductors of silver,
borrowed from the Treasury's vaults at West Point Brass, an alloy of copper
and zinc, was scarce enough to warrant serious debate over substituting steel
in shell cases. With such facts in mind, Lend-Lease shipments of copper,
brass and bronze to the Soviet Union, divulged in the Russian lists, seem
terrifying. They aggregated 642,503 tons, valued at $283,609,967.
Seven-tenths of all our copper donations to Russia consisted of wire and
cable. In January, 1942, Donald M. Nelson was named chairman of the War
Production Board. According to Robert I. Sherwood, he owed the appointment to
Harry Hopkins, who recommended Nelson after talking Mr. Roosevelt out of his
notion of a three-man committee�Nelson, Wendell Willkie and William O.
Douglas.
But Nelson, knowing the needs of American aircraft production, rebelled
against Russia's enormous requisitions of copper wire. Soviet agents appealed
to Hopkins, who ordered Nelson to give what they wanted. Despite his personal
obligation, the chairman was patriotic enough to refuse, and did so a second
time when the command was repeated.
Thereupon, Hopkins arranged a meeting at the White House, where the President
went to work on the WPB chief. Mr. Roosevelt suggested that he would take it
as a personal favor if Nelson let the Russians have all the copper wire they
requested. What they obtained was enough telephone wire to circle the globe
50 times. The allotment of copper wire and cable to Russia in 1942 was 32,355
tons.[6] After three more years the total was 219,403 tons, rated at
$108,115,726.7
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the Navy needed to repair our damaged
battleships and placed a high priority order for copper wire suitable for
battleship use. The Navy, however, did not have a priority high enough to
secure the wire they needed, because an order for Russian copper wire had a
higher priority. The American Steel & Wire Company plant at Worcester, Mass.
continued to rush through the Soviet order, which amounted to nearly a
million miles of copper wire. This was obviously intended for the post-war
rehabilitation of Russian cities, because the wire, which was on spools, was
packed in separate soft pine boxes and placed in storage on a 20 acre lot in
Westchester County, New York, where it remained until the war was nearly over
before it was shipped to Russia for rehabilitation of their communications
system.
About the same time a storm arose in the Ordnance Division of the War
Department, which had been sending to Russia quantities of artillery shell
cases. The Russians announced that they wished to make their own cases, and
demanded the requisite metal sheets and machinery, including hydraulic
presses and annealing furnaces.
American experts protested on two grounds. The process left a residue of
scrap amounting to 45 per cent of the original brass which could be melted
down into other sheets. In view of the shortage, it was felt that the surplus
should be kept in the United States instead of being donated to Russia. More
important was the fact that delivery of presses and furnaces would hand over
to possible future enemies the know-how of a vital branch of our munitions
industry. Objections of the War Department and War Production Board were
overruled by the White House.
The gift of this self-contained unit�a plant for fabricating shell
cases�brings us to a new dimension of Soviet Lend-Lease. Before the Russians,
like a mail-order catalogue, had been spread the total array of American
products and resources. In order to receive, they had merely to ask. If bills
were ever rendered, they need not pay.
We also sent machine tools and apparatus for precision tests; lathes and
power tools for metal working; machinery for textiles, wood pulp and paper,
woodworking, typesetting and printing; and cranes, hoists, derricks,
elevators, air compressors, coal cutters and rock drills. The thought is
disconcerting that each machine may have been copied and bred multitudes of
its kind.
>From individual machines Soviet hunger sharpened to demand entire factories.
The Twenty-First Report acknowledges the delivery to Russia of one tire
plant, one aluminum rolling mill and an unstated number of pipe fabricating
works. General Groves testified that the Manhattan Project, in the nick of
time, snatched from boxes on an American wharf the equipment for an oil
refinery going to Russia. But the agency had to promise the use of "all its
priorities" for replacing the equipment at the earliest moment.
The following installations, mostly described as "complete," are among those
for which the American Government, under Lend-Lease Act, pledged delivery to
the Soviet Union:
One repair plant for precision instruments, $550,000; two factories for food
products, $6,924,000; three gas generating units, $21,390,000; one petroleum
refinery, with machinery and equipment, $29,050,000; 17 stationary steam and
three hydro-electric plants, $263,289,000.
They even got more than $88 millions as charity! Hopkins' experience as a
relief administrator was well known to the Russians. When they applied to
Hopkins, they got "relief"�even though it was in direct violation of the
Lend-Lease Act. According to their records the items are officially listed as
"Relief or Charity." In 1942 they received $10,457,417. In 1943 it went to
$19,089,139. In 1944 the total was $25,479,722. In 1945 it was $33,674,825.
The total for four years for this handout alone: $88,701,103.8
The women of Russia have every reason to be well dressed, even today, thanks
to Mr. Hopkins. In the three years 1942-44 we sent the Russians dress goods
costing more than $152 millions, plus $24 millions of satin twill, and
ribbons, braids and trimmings, costing millions more a grand total of $181
millions for women's apparel.[9] (In the same period the Russian Army got
only $21 millions of uniform material.)
Among other things I found in the black suitcases at Great Falls were
blueprints of the leading industrial plants of the country. I opened one
suitcase, as an example, and found the complete plans for a General Electric
Plant at East Lynn, Mass. I have since inquired about this plant and have
found that it was under constant heavy guard, since it was at this plant that
our new plane turbo-chargers are being made. Armed guards to keep Americans
out�but all the blueprints sent to our most dangerous enemy before the plant
was built! We also found blueprints of the Electric Boat Corp., of Groton,
Conn., where our new atomic submarines are being built.
During the summer of 1943 there was another load of "diplomatic suitcases."
Following the routine I had set up, I opened three�one at each end of the
plane and one at the center. To my surprise all contained reprints of the
patents in the U. S. Patent Office, a division of the Department of Commerce.
When I spoke to Colonel Kotikov, he said the entire cargo consisted of these
records, and that they would be coming, through continuously.
The Soviet Union has refused to give out a single one of its patents since
1927. But our Patent Office was thrown open to a crew of technical experts
from the Amtorg Trading Corporation. They were on full-time duty, and spent
every day going over the files to pick out what they wanted. The documents
were provided by the Patent Office itself.
Later the task was taken over by another Soviet Govern-ment agency, the Four
Continent Book Company, which abandoned the selective process and took
everything in sight. The photostats were paid for with frequent checks,
running from $1,000 to $4,000 each.
The number of patents acquired, the House Committee on Un-American Activities
stated in 1949, "runs into the hundreds of thousands." The Committee further
stated that "Russian officials have been able to collect a lot of our
industrial and military inventions from our Government Patent Office. This is
done right out in the open with our permission."
Among the patent reprints supplied to Russia the committee listed:
bombsights, military tanks, airplanes, ship controls, bomb-dropping devices,
helicopters, mine sweepers, ammunition, bullet-resisting armor. This sack of
America's inventive ingenuity did not end with the war, but continued four
years longer. The State Department ruled that nothing could be done without
Congressional legislation. Finally, due to the Fulton Lewis broadcasts and
the resulting public indignation, John Marzall, Commissioner of Patents,
ordered the termination of this practice on December 13, 1949.
Another "diplomatic" cargo which arrived at Great Falls was a planeload of
films. Colonel Stanislau Shumovsky, the Russian in charge, tried to prevent
me from making an inspection by flaunting a letter from the State Department.
I told him the letter did not apply to me. It was a letter authorizing this
Russian to visit any restricted plant, and to make motion pictures of
intricate machinery and manufacturing processes. I looked over a half dozen
of the hundreds of cans of films. That one plane carried a tremendous amount
of America's technical know-how to Russia.
And in return? Well, here is the story of "reverse Lend-Lease." In 1943 we in
Great Falls sent Dr. Patrinkoff on to Washington as a representative of
Russian industry. He was supposed to have the very latest process data for
making synthetic rubber. The State Department publicized his arrival and
arranged for him to meet with the Rubber Reserve Corporation. There, "in
exchange for the invaluable Russian technique," he was to be completely
enlightened about (1) our chemical processes for making synthetic rubber, (2)
the plant designs and flow sheets, (3) anything else he might want to know
about.
The visit, from the point of view of Rubber Reserve Corporation, was
valueless for the following reasons:
1. In July of 1942 all process designs were frozen so that plant construction
could commence.
2. During late 1943 construction was largely complete and operations were
beginning to deliver the rubber.
3. The protest from Houdry Process Corporation during late 1943 that they had
perfected a better, cheaper process than any then being projected, was
overruled since the objective was to produce rubber and not to perfect an
ideal system.
4. Dr. Patrinkoff arrived during the Houdry protest and such ideas on process
as he did reluctantly divulge were unsuitable and, in fact, covered almost
primitive phases of synthesis which had been obsolete in the United States
for some time.
Dr. Patrinkoff, after being refused full unlimited access to its data by
Rubber Reserve Corporation, went to various chemical and rubber companies in
the country and attempted to gain what had been denied to him in Washington.
Each company he visited called Rubber Reserve Corporation for confirmation
and each in turn refused the requested information. He then went to the plant
construction companies and received the same treatment.
Thereafter the Department of State sent him to Du Pont and asked that. he be
given the process data on neoprene production. Sufficient pressure
accompanied this request to make Du Pont accede. The neoprene process is not
patented but is undivulged in this country. Thus it can be assumed that the
Russians did learn this very valuable process through the intervention of our
State Department. Dr. Patrinkoff's visit was publicized as "reverse
Lend-Lease"�Russian aid to the United States!
This "reverse Lend-Lease" cost taxpayers: five plants for synthetic rubber
and its constituents, $27,500,000; two neoprene rubber factories; one factory
each for styrene, Houdry method butadiene, and Houdry catalysts. The neoprene
and butadiene plants had a capacity of 40,000 tons annually, which is
probably the reason the Soviet press announced recently that they now lead
the world in synthetic rubber production.
In his ardor for the Soviets, Hopkins never hesitated to seize upon supplies
urgently demanded by other agencies, even when the issue was military success
on the Western Front Colonel H. E. Rounds, a wartime member of the Supply
Committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, has stated to me that
interventions of this kind were so frequent that they came to be regarded as
all but invariable. The general feeling, Colonel Rounds said, was that in a
given supply problem the Russians repeatedly came first.
When Harry Hopkins stood up in Madison Square Garden on June 22, 1942 and
said to the Russian people: "We are determined that nothing shall stop us
from sharing with you all that we have," he knew exactly how he was going to
do this. it was to be through Lend-Lease, over which he had such absolute
personal control that nothing could stop him from sharing with the Soviet
Union all that we had.
pps. 66-75
--[SOURCES]--
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Look At Lend-Lease
1. Twenty-First Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations, The White House,
Jan. 31, 1946, (U. S. Government Printing Office), p. 25.
2. ibid., Table 8, p. 24.
3. Ibid.
4. Soviet Supply Protocols, State Department Document No. 2759, (U. S.
Government Printing Office, 1946).
5. Twenty-First Report, Table 9. p. 25.
6. Soviet figures (Jordan Diary).
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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