711.00111 Armament Control/Military Secrets/715
Memorandum by the Chief of the Office of Arms and Munitions Control (Green)
Mr. Renchard of the Secretary’s office called at my office this morning and introduced Mr. Scott Ferris, former Representative in Congress from Oklahoma. He said that he was an attorney representing the Carp Export and Import Corporation, and that he had called on the Secretary who had referred him to me. Mr. Ferris said that the Carp Export and Import Corporation had asked him to call at the Department and at the Navy Department, with a view to overcoming the objections of the Government which were preventing the Corporation from carrying out its proposal to purchase in this country material and equipment and armament for one or more battleships to be assembled in the U. S. S. R. Mr. Ferris was only vaguely familiar with the many conversations which officers of the Department and of the Navy Department have had with representatives of the Carp Export and Import Corporation and the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited, in regard to this matter. I related to him the substance of those conversations and explained to him that the inability [Page 476] of the Carp Export and Import Corporation to carry out its proposals was due not to the objection of the Government, but to the apparent unwillingness of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited, to enter into such a contract as the Carp Export and Import Corporation proposed.
Mr. Ferris asked that I furnish him with a résumé of the situation which he might use in attempting to explain the attitude of the Department to his clients.