811.20 (D) Regulations/164
Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
I consider that the matters referred to in the two memoranda16 here attached are of very great and very immediate importance. I feel that, in order to get any action with regard to them, action by the heads of Departments—this Department and the Navy Department and the War Department—will be required. I feel that action will have to be taken on the basis of major policy in connection with the broad problem of national defense: it will not be taken on the basis of administrative decisions under the principle of merely keeping at home commodities urgently required for our national defense and of which there is no excess supply which we could afford to export. I hope and I urge that you will take the appropriate initiative toward ensuring early and adequate consideration of this problem from all angles.
- See memorandum of July 19, infra.↩