812.5018/49
The Assistant Secretary of State (Berle) to the Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith)
Dear George: I have to refer to your letter of September 23 to the Secretary,52 and to other correspondence of the same date, regarding the corn situation.
As you know, the President issued a directive, of which I enclose a copy,53 covering a preliminary shipment of some 60,000 bushels. This corn was taken from the WPB54 industrial stockpile and is moving out of Kansas City as rapidly as circumstances permit. We realize, of course, that this is but a small part of the entire Mexican immediate need. This matter is being very actively explored, and Commodity Credit is endeavoring to locate corn elsewhere which might be used to replace any that might be taken from our own stocks or which might be made available to the Mexicans on an immediate basis.
As you know, the degree of difficulty involved in a matter of obtaining this corn for Mexico is exceedingly great, as you will undoubtedly [Page 437] realize from the fact that it was a question which the Department, together with other interested agencies, was entirely unable to resolve and which it found necessary to submit to the President. I need not assure you that every effort is being made by this Department to find some solution to this question the importance of which, as regards our relations with Mexico, is not in any way being underestimated here.
With kind regards,
Sincerely yours,