763.72/2596½
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: Here is the draft of our communication to the Imperial German Government as I think it should go to Berlin.41
I have gone over it again and again, and believe now that it is sound at every point. I will see you tomorrow and agree with you as to the exact time at which it shall be sent. Will you not, in the meantime have it put in code and made ready to send?
May I not add this earnest caution? So soon as copies of your suggested revision of this paper were made at the State Department (or was it only a single copy,—the one I am now returning with my own final handling of it?) the newspapers became aware of its contents. Will you not use extraordinary precautions in having this final draft copied and make it absolutely safe against the newspaper men both in the transcription and in the coding? This seems to me of the essence of wisdom just at this juncture. I hope that you will make absolutely sure how it is handled and by whom, and hold each individual to the strictest responsibility, upon pain of immediate dismissal. The draft you sent me was undoubtedly given out from the Department (I mean the substance of it), for no one here saw it in the form in which I had written it or in your first redraft except myself.
Faithfully Yours,