862.00/789
The Assistant Secretary of State ( Phillips ) to the Secretary of State
Dear Mr. Secretary: Last evening Mr. Rickard of the Food Administration suggested to me that possibly it would be better if Mr. Hoover himself did not proceed to Berlin. He felt that Dr. Taylor and Mr. Kellogg, both of whom are with Mr. Hoover in Paris, would be the logical men to go. Mr. Rickard said that the Food Administration is being flooded with protests from all parts of the country with regard to the plans for feeding Germany and that the departure of Hoover for Berlin would merely increase the trouble by giving great publicity to it. He thought that Taylor and Kellogg, both of whom know Germany and speak German fluently, could go in without any publicity at all and secure the information just as well as Mr. Hoover.