811.00B/2161

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Hoover) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)3

Dear Mr. Berle: In connection with the current campaign by the Communist Party for the establishment of a “Second Front” in Europe, Communist Party members in labor unions in one section of the country have been instructed to write letters to parents of boys in the armed forces urging the establishment of a “Second Front” with the argument that delay in opening one now will only serve to keep their boys away from home for a longer time and that the longer the war lasts the greater will be the possibility that the war will end in defeat. In these letters the parents of the boys in the armed forces are urged to write letters to the White House demanding a “Second Front.”

A member of the National Committee of the Communist Party in issuing the foregoing instructions to Communist members of labor unions has stated that the parents had to be “sold” on the “Second Front” with those arguments because if they, the parents, have any intelligence at all they will realize that tremendous casualties will result as soon as the “Second Front” is opened.

Sincerely yours,

J. Edgar Hoover
  1. Mr. Berle sent a copy of this letter on October 9 to the White House for the President because “it will be of interest.”