711.00111 Armament Control/Military Secrets/977
Memorandum by the Chief of the Office of Arms and Munitions Control (Green)
Mr. Henry Sutphen, Vice President of the Electric Boat Company, called at my office this morning. He handed me the attached clipping from the New York Times of January 9,86 in regard to the activities of the Carp Export and Import Corporation. He said that Messrs. Carp and Wolf of that company had approached him with a view to the purchase of submarines for the U. S. S. R., but that he had refused to enter into a contract. He added that he had discussed with a number of ship builders the proposal of the Carp Export and Import Corporation to purchase one or more battleships in this country, and that he was convinced that no ship builder would enter into a contract with Carp. He said that none of the ship builders had sufficient confidence in Carp or his associates to be willing to enter into a contract with them. Mr. Sutphen expressed the opinion that had the Soviet Government placed the negotiations for a battleship in the hands of Amtorg,87 which has now gained the confidence of American business men, or had Carp entrusted all of the negotiations to some American in whom the Government and the ship builders could have reposed confidence, there would have been no great difficulty in closing the necessary contracts for the construction of battleships.