Office of the Historian

800.24/12–2044

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Acheson) to Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Roosevelt

Washington, December 28, 1944.

Dear Harry: The memorandum24 you enclosed with your note of December 2025 simply set forth a preliminary position to serve as a [Page 105] guide to the United States negotiators in reaching a determination with the British and Canadians on the future of the Combined Boards.

The paper has now served its purpose and individual memoranda have been agreed to in Washington regarding the Combined Production and Resources Board, the Combined Raw Materials Board and the Combined Food Board. These were sent to the President accompanied by a memorandum dated December 12, 1944, a copy of which is enclosed.26

We have subsequently received the President’s approval.27 Informal approval has also been transmitted to the Department by the Canadians after consideration in Ottawa.

The British members of the group doing the negotiating here have sent the papers to London with a recommendation that they be accepted. The matter having been carried this far, I do not believe you need concern yourself with it further.28

Dean Acheson
  1. Memorandum of September 20, on “The Future of the Combined Boards”, printed on p. 80.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Ante, p. 101.↩
  4. Memorandum from President Roosevelt to the Secretary of State, December 20, not printed.↩
  5. For text of statement by President Roosevelt on the decision to maintain the Combined Boards as well as the announcement by President Roosevelt and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and Canada, both released to the press on January 19, 1945, see Department of State Bulletin, January 28, 1945, pp. 119–121.↩