851.248/121

Memorandum by the Chief of the Office of Arms and Munitions Control (Green)

During the few days following September 27, on which date the Secretary addressed a letter to the President63 recommending that he consider the advisability of asking the Navy Department to make arrangements to permit the trial flights requested by the French Ambassador in his note of September 13, I had two telephone conversations with Admiral Cook, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, asking whether any decision had been made by the Navy Department in regard to this matter. He told me that Admiral Leahy64 was awaiting definite instructions from the White House before proceeding further with the question of trial flights, but that he thought that informal arrangements satisfactory to the French naval air mission would probably be made and that he would let me know as soon as the matter had been decided. Not having heard further from Admiral Cook, I called his office by telephone this morning and was informed that he had left Washington on a long tour of inspection. Therefore I called Admiral Leahy by telephone.

I told Admiral Leahy that I had delayed preparing a definite reply to the French Ambassador’s note of September 13, hoping to bear further from the Navy Department in regard to the matter, and asked whether he could give me any information which the Department could pass on to the Ambassador.

The Admiral said that arrangements entirely satisfactory to the French naval air mission had been made, and he gave me some details [Page 314] in regard to what had been done. He requested, however, that in any written communication to the Ambassador the matter be dealt with in vague and general terms in order that the extent of the exceptional treatment accorded to the French air mission might not be made a matter of record in correspondence with a foreign government.

Joseph C. Green
  1. Not printed.
  2. Chief of Naval Operations.