711.00111 Armament Control/Military Secrets/1982
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Controls (Green)
Messrs. J. C. Ward, Jr., J. M. Barr and L. L. Snow, of the United Aircraft Corporation, called at my office this morning. They explained that Amtorg was endeavoring to negotiate with their company a license agreement for the manufacture of Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp 1830 and Pratt & Whitney Twin Hornet 2180 aircraft engines under which these engines could be manufactured in the U. S. S. R. As both of these engines have been released for export, no question could arise on the score of military secrecy. They wished, however, to ascertain the attitude of this Government toward such a contract as that which Amtorg had proposed.
I said that I had no comment to make on the proposed transaction. I explained, however, that if the Department had any definite objection on grounds of law or policy to any proposed transaction it did not hesitate to state its objection. I referred to the attitude of this Government toward the proposal of the Government of the U. S. S. R. to obtain naval vessels in this country and said that that explanation might enable them to draw their own conclusions.
The representatives of the company said that, in view of what I had said, they would probably seriously consider entering into the proposed contract. They explained that one consideration which deterred them was the difficulty which might arise in respect to the presence of Soviet inspectors in the company’s plants. In order to obviate any possible difficulty, they proposed to include in the contract [Page 893] under consideration a clause providing that no more than three representatives of the U. S. S. R. should be given access to the company’s offices at any one time and that access of these three to the factory was to be limited to such times as might be convenient to the military and naval authorities, subject to such restrictions as those authorities might impose and, in particular, to the restriction that they should never enter the factory except when accompanied by a military or naval inspector.