Office of the Historian

Truman Papers

No. 1199
President Truman to Prime Minister Churchill
top secret
[Babelsberg,] 23 July 1945.1

Memorandum for the Prime Minister

In 1942 when the munitions resources of the United States and the United Kingdom were insufficient to meet the requirements of the United Nations forces you and President Roosevelt agreed to pool our munitions resources and to create Munitions Assignments Boards in London and Washington to assign finished war material to the several United Nations in accordance with strategic need.

Since the munitions resources of the United States and the United Kingdom are now generally more than sufficient to insure the success of combined strategy, I consider that the Munitions Assignments Board, Washington, no longer serves a useful purpose. I therefore propose to abolish this Board and would appreciate your concurrence in this action.

Harry S. Truman
  1. The date appears as a manuscript addition, in brackets, on the source copy.↩