39. Letter From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Research and Intelligence (McCormack) to the President’s Chief of Staff (Leahy)0
My Dear Admiral Leahy: Enclosed is the President’s Executive Order relating to the OSS, together with his letters to General Donovan and the Secretary of State.1 On the last page of the attached you will find the place where I have marked to show what the present directive states in respect to machinery for formulation of plans for post-war intelligence.
It has seemed to us in the State Department that this Department should formulate its own plans before going ahead with the interdepartmental group. That position has been acceptable to the Army and, I think, also to the Navy, and the Army has had a Board functioning for the purpose of determining its position on the post-war intelligence problem.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 263, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, Troy Papers, Box 10, Folder 73. No classification marking. Leahy met with McCormack on this date to discuss “the formation of a Central Intelligence Service.” (Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Papers of William D. Leahy, Leahy Diaries 1945, p. 182)↩
- See Documents 14 and 15, and the source note to the latter.↩