Office of the Historian

Memorandum by Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to the President, to President Roosevelt 16

[Washington,] September 8, 1944.

Dear Mr. President: I think it is important, in Quebec,17 that you tell the Prime Minister how strongly you feel about knocking down [Page 57] some of the trade barriers to get somewhere in terms of world trade.

I have a feeling that the Prime Minister thinks that that is a pet hobby of Secretary Hull’s and that you may not think it of great importance.

I think it is essential to our future bargaining with Great Britain that you disabuse the Prime Minister’s mind of this.

I rather think that he thinks that the genius of this program in America lies with Secretary Hull, while the truth of the matter is that it is a program that, from the beginning, has been pushed by you.

H[arry] L. H[opkins]
  1. Copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
  2. President Roosevelt was about to depart for the Second Quebec Conference, held September 11–16, 1944, with British Prime Minister Churchill. Correspondence on this Conference is scheduled for publication in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations.↩