856D.20/58
Mr. Lynn R. Edminster, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, to Major General James H. Burns, Executive Officer, Division of Defense Aid Reports, Office of Emergency Management
Dear General Burns: This refers to your letter of July 17, 1941 to me,21 asking me to ascertain the attitude of the State Department toward a proposal which had been suggested to Mr. Hopkins by the Netherlands Indies, that our Government send to the Netherlands Indies a small group to make a general survey of its national defense needs in order to assist in determining what aid should be made available by this country through lend-lease or otherwise.
I have referred this matter to the appropriate officials of this Department, and I am now advised that the Department feels that it would be inadvisable for such a mission to be sent at this time. There is no objection to individual officers and individual technical experts being sent there at this time if it is thought that there is a real need for them to be there. But it is felt that the sending of a special mission at this time would tend to aggravate the situation in that area; that it would afford the Japanese an additional pretext for expansion southward; and that these considerations would outweigh any possible advantages that might be realized.
Sincerely yours,
- Not printed.↩