800.6363/4–144
The First Secretary of the British Embassy (Blake-Tyler) to the Petroleum Adviser (Rayner)
My Dear Rayner: The following is the text of an announcement which is being issued in London for publication on the morning of April 4th.
Begins. An official delegation is about to leave for Washington to conduct preliminary and exploratory discussions on petroleum questions at an expert and technical level. Delegation will be led by Sir William Brown, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.B.E. The other members will be Commodore A. W. Clarke, D.S.O., R.N., Sir William Fraser, C.B.E., Sir Frederick Godber, F. Harner, J.H. Le Rougetel, C.M.G., M.C., F. C. Starling, C.B.E.
Secretary will be Mr. V. Butler. Ends.
You will of course appreciate that it will be necessary for the delegation to return to England and to present their report, and for this report to be considered fully by Ministers before discussions are embarked on at Ministerial level. In any publicity which you care to give to the question at this stage, therefore, the Foreign Office would be grateful if no statement is made which would imply that Ministers [Page 110] would arrive in Washington immediately at the conclusion of the official discussions.
Yours very truly,
[On April 11, 1944, the Department of State announced to the press the composition of the American group of experts, and on April 13, 1944, a list of ten representatives of the American petroleum industry invited to meet with the group of experts; see Department of State Bulletin, April 15, 1944, pages 346–347.]