Foreign Relations of the United States, The Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

The President’s Personal Representative (Bullitt) to the President ¹

secret
personal

Cairo, December 31, 1941.
[Received January 2, 1942.]

Following secret for the President from Bullitt.

(1) Lyttelton has asked me to join him in a statement of our views which are in agreement on the possibility of an invasion of Tunisia in case Auchinleck’s forces should reach the Tunisian frontier. As his means of communication and codes are much more rapid than our own he is telegraphing tonight to the British Ambassador for you and Churchill a draft which we have prepared together.²

(2) I consider it important that you should give the orders requested in my telegram of December 20th³ and in my telegram I sent on the same date through General Maxwell to the War Department.⁴ The problem of transportation and telegraph and telephone communications in this area is becoming more serious with each step that the British advance.

Bullitt

1. Sent via Navy channels.
2. Infra.
3. Ante, p. 47.
4. Not printed, but see the characterization of the telegram in Bullitt’s telegram to Roosevelt of December 20, ante, p. 49.