Lot 57 D 688
The Secretary of War’s Special Assistant ( Bundy ) to the Secretary of War ( Stimson )1
Memorandum for the Secretary
I know your views about the S–1 project and the advisability of its ultimately being the joint possession of the U.K. and the U.S.A.
If you take the matter up with the President, I think it vital that he should understand that what Dr. Bush and Dr. Conant* are really trying to do is to work out the agreement for interchange of information so that nobody, including the political opponents of the President, will be in a position to say that he acted otherwise than under the war powers and for the sole purpose of winning the war. Therefore, they are strenuously of the opinion that the agreement should stand on a reasonable basis of quid pro quo and exchanges should be limited to the exchanges of information which will help expedite the S–1 development. They are trying to avoid at all costs the President being accused of dealing with hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money improvidently or acting for purposes beyond the winning of the war by turning over great power in the post war world to the U.K. without, adequate consideration or without submitting such a vital question for consideration and action by both Executive and Legislative authority.
- Attached to the source text is a copy of a memorandum of the same date from Bundy to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army (Marshall), reading: “I hope the attached is what you had in mind for me to say to the Secretary”, and a notation that Marshall had written in pencil: “Mr. Bundy: I think it is o.k.”↩
- Note by General Groves: Their views were in complete accordance with the opinions of the Military Policy Committee. [Footnote in the source text.]↩