033.1151R/9–444: Circular telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Turkey ( Steinhardt )
A special Mission has been organized to study questions affecting foreign economic and commercial policies of this Government in relation to certain areas of North Africa1 and the Middle East. The Mission is under the sponsorship of the Department of State and has as its Chairman William S. Culbertson who has been given the personal rank of Ambassador. In addition to Culbertson, personnel includes Homer Fox and Frederick Winant of State, Eric Biddle, Bureau of the Budget, Ray Miller, Department of Commerce, and John L. Gillis, William L. Friedlaender, Victor Bowman, Richard C. Thompson, and Van Lear Woodward of the Foreign Economic Administration.
The Mission should arrive in Cairo early in September and later that month it is expected some of the members will leave Cairo to visit and make studies in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine in the order mentioned.
The scope of the proposed inquiry includes not only immediate questions of facilitating and increasing exports from the area to the United States but also recommendations for longer range plans for the promotion of commercial exchange. The Department requests that you facilitate activities of the Mission and render such aid and support as may be required.
More detailed information concerning Culbertson Mission follows by air mail. Sent to Ankara, repeated to: Baghdad, Beirut, Jerusalem, Tehran and Cairo.
- For documentation on the activities of this mission in North Africa, see vol. iii, pp. 763 ff.↩