Office of the Historian

893.51/7459

Memorandum by the Adviser on International Economic Affairs (Feis) to the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)

[Washington,] February 11, 1942.

Mr. Hornbeck: I wholly agree.83 I think the meeting should be held at once.

I believe the Chinese Government should be asked how much of the $500,000,000 they wanted now, and for what purposes, and that unless there is serious objection to their ideas they should be made at once, and I believe also that the fund should be advanced without interest and that if repayment is provided it should not begin until a distant date.

The only safeguard for these funds that should be sought is that they are genuinely applied to advance the war effort; no attempt should be made to safeguard them from the financial point of view.84

H[erbert] F[eis]
  1. Reference is to Mr. Hornbeck’s memorandum of February 10, supra. ↩
  2. Notation by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle): “Concur. A. A. B.”.↩