File No. 763.72114/3425
The Secretary of State to the Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett)
1062. Your 2209, March 26, 8 p.m. This Government fully appreciates the initiative of the Dutch-American committee formed for the purpose of sending food to American prisoners in Germany and desires you to express this appreciation in appropriate terms. At the same time you should definitely discourage it from carrying out this work. Complete arrangements have already been made by this Government for feeding American prisoners from the moment of their arrival in the prison camps, at first from supplies in the hands of the local camp committees and the Young Men’s Christian Association and subsequently by food packages sent regularly by the American Red Cross–Central Committee for American Prisoners established at Berne. Any parallel attempt to carry out this work would result in confusion and reduplication which this Government particularly wishes to avoid.