840.4061 Motion Pictures/33
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Long)
Colonel Herron, representative of Mr. Will Hays and the motion picture industry came in at his request. I told him that I thought we had better wait until Mr. Hays returned to New York and until after he had had all of his conferences with the presidents of the companies; then he could talk with us. I told him we would be glad to cooperate to any legitimate and reasonable extent in making representations to sustain the rights of American interests in Germany and German-occupied territory. Colonel Herron doubted that they would ask retaliation. He thought retaliation would not affect a large German interest in this country. He said he personally hated to see the propaganda films which the Germans were exhibiting here, particularly on the east side of New York. However, they had little circulation. Even though he disliked to see films of that kind imported and shown in the United States, he was of the opinion that to exclude them would be insignificant in importance as compared with the damage that had been caused by German action against the American moving picture interests in German-occupied territory.