501/3–1946
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs ( Hiss ) to Mr. Bohlen
[
Washington
,] March 19, 1946.
As you know, we very strongly favor the type of coordinating group suggested in your memorandum of March 14 to the Directors of the geographic offices and to SPA. Our thinking has been running along the same lines and we have tentatively spelled out the coordinating process like this:
- 1.
- The desk officers in the geographic divisions and the appropriate officers in IS and OA will continually be analyzing possible situations which may develop into UNO matters. We assume these officers will keep constantly in touch with each other in this work and will communicate their thinking to their division chiefs and through them to the offices to which they are responsible.
- 2.
- The coordinating group suggested in your memorandum of March 14 I assume will want to appoint working teams on various specific cases, composed of officers from the appropriate geographic offices or divisions and from SPA and its divisions. The coordinating group may want to review the papers prepared by such teams, develop basic criteria for guiding the process of arriving at decisions on which matters are to be brought before the UNO and by whom, and also on the types of matters that are not considered appropriate for UNO. Your suggestion that a person be designated in each geographic office [Page 12] and in SPA for this purpose is an excellent one, and either Jack Ross or I will be present at each meeting.
Alger Hiss