President Roosevelt to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek 11
My Dear Generalissimo: This will introduce to you my two very good personal friends, General Hurley, former Secretary of War, and now a Major General; and Mr. Donald M. Nelson the head of the War Production Board.
General Hurley is to be my personal representative on military matters and you can talk to him with the utmost freedom. His principal [Page 250] mission is to coordinate the whole military picture under you as Military Commander-in-Chief—your being, of course, the Commander-in-Chief of the whole area—to help to iron out any problems between you and General Stilwell who, of course, has problems of his own regarding the Burma campaign and is necessarily in close touch with Admiral Mountbatten.
Mr. Nelson was, as I have written you, the head of Sears Roebuck Company, the largest distributing company for all manner of goods—farm goods, industrial goods and household goods—the greatest business of that kind in the United States. As soon as we got into the war he came to the Government in charge of the War Production Board and has made a splendid record in multiplying American production many fold, so that it has arrived at the point where we are talking not only of keeping the present production up, but of making plans for the restoration of this production to terms of peace. I think that you will find him extremely understanding and sympathetic.
He does not, of course, supersede the Secretary of the Treasury in matters of finance, but he has many original ideas and will quickly understand your economic policy.
In the case of both of them, I want you to feel free to talk to them frankly, as they are both literally my personal representatives.
Good luck—and keep up the good work.
Always sincerely,
- Copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩