GIFT FOOD REFUSED

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27090, 13 July 1953, Page 9

GIFT FOOD REFUSED

East Germany’s Reply To U.S.

(Rec. 9 p.m.) BERLIN, July 11. The East German Government today rejected a United States offer of

15,000,000 dollars (£5, worth of food, the East German news agency, A.D.N., reported today. The offer was made yesterday by Mr E. O. Henessy, the acting American Charge d’Affaires in Moscow, to Mr Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet Deputy-; Foreign Minister. It was made on President’s Eisenhower’s behalf. A White House statement after news of the offer was released yesterday said it was made to help the suffering people in the Soviet-con-trolled East German zone. Mr Eisenhower acted in response to a letter from the West German Federal Chancellor (Dr. Konrad Adenauer), who had asked the United States to. participate in helping the East Germans because their food supply had been steadily deteriorating. Grain, sugar, lard, soya bean oil and other commodities were to have been sent.

The East German communique issued tonight from the office of the East German Prime Minister (Mr Otto Grotewohl) said: “The American offer can be summed up as another provocation after the failure of their efforts of June 17 (the day of the East Berlin riots).

“Efforts by the East German Government to arrange trade between East and West Germany have been thwarted by America, Britain and France, to the detriment of the economies of both halves of Germany. We do not intend to chew the Americans’ chewing gum for them. If the United States Government really wanted to help Germany, it must annul the Schuman Plan, permit free trade between East and West Germany and not interfere with German foreign trade, cancel the European Army Treaty and the Bonn Conventions and call four-Power talks on German unity.” The East German communique said East Germany was, in any case, in no need of American aid because it belonged to the democratic world market and had favourable trade pacts with the Soviet Union, China, Poland, and the other countries. “Moreover, she is at present conducting talks over additional deliveries from the Soviet Union.”