890F.6363/77
Memorandum by Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
The President has directed me to take up personally with the Secretary of State the attached recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff17 that arrangements be made to obtain for the United States Government interest in the Saudi Arabian oil fields.
[Page 922]He suggests that the American Minister in Saudi Arabia, assisted by our American oil expert who has no connection with American commercial oil interests, should make immediate efforts to obtain from Saudi Arabia oil concessions for the United States Government with the purpose of establishing a naval oil fuel reserve similar to those now existing in the United States, the United States Government to pay the usual royalties for the oil when it is taken.
He suggests Captain A. F. Carter, U. S. Naval Reserve, as a competent and suitable expert to assist the Minister in his negotiations.
- Presumably the memorandum of June 8, supra. ↩