695.0031/4–2447
The Assistant Secretary of State ( Hilldring ) to the Assistant Secretary of War ( Petersen )
My Dear Mr. Petersen: In our recent conversations regarding the stimulation of exports from the areas under U.S. occupation we have discussed the appointment in the War Department at a high level of some aggressive person who can devote his full time to expediting the development of such exports. It was our thought that this officer would [Page 636] engage in the active promotion of trade with these areas and would be the person in the government with whom business men having proposals for financing and developing such trade would deal.
The Advisory Committee on Occupied Areas Affairs is deeply interested in aiding any program undertaken by the War Department for the rapid increase of exports from our occupied areas. In order to give the most effective aid to solving the problems involved, the Committee has agreed to establish two subcommittees on trade development, one for Germany and Austria, the other for Japan and Korea. Each Department will assign an officer to these subcommittees who, to the extent that they are needed, will be available for the work of the subcommittees.
It is the thought of the OAC that the subcommittees on trade development can work in the very closest coordination with the War Department’s expediter, who is invited to sit on each subcommittee. Through this close coordination the suggestions of all interested departments will be made available to him at once. Through the operation of the subcommittees and with their advice the Department of State may rapidly furnish him with necessary policy decisions. Through the members of the subcommittees he will be able to have clearly defined and responsible contacts in each of several departments and agencies with which he will have frequent dealings in his work.
The OAC contemplates that the USCC will also have a representative on each subcommittee and that other interested agencies, such as the Export-Import Bank, will be invited to sit on the subcommittees when matters in which they are concerned are under discussion.
In behalf of OAC, I should appreciate having your views on the possibility of an early appointment of a trade development officer in the War Department and on his participation with the OAC subcommittees in an active effort to bring the foreign trade of our occupied areas into an early balance.
Sincerely yours,