800.01B11 Registration/9–749
The Acting Attorney General (Ford) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I have your letter of August 29, 1949 to which you attached a copy of a proposed communication to the Soviet Embassy apprising the Government of the U.S.S.R. of the failure of the Amtorg Trading Corporation to respond to the requests of this Department that it register in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended.
In your letter you refer to the proposed communication which this Department was to send to Amtorg reminding it once again of its obligations to register with the Department of Justice. Such a letter was in fact prepared and read to Mr. Adrian Fisher1 of your staff on August 29. Upon his approval, the letter was immediately transmitted to Amtorg.2 No reply has been received.
As you know, this Department has not agreed as to the necessity or desirability of sending a note to the Soviet Embassy regarding Amtorg’s responsibility under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Should you, however, feel that diplomatic considerations make it essential that such a note be transmitted, the Department has no objection to the form of note attached to your letter of August 29, 1949, with the exception that the statute cited should be Title 22, U.S. Code, Sections 611–621.
I will appreciate it if you will keep me currently advised of any action you may take in this regard.3
Sincerely,
- Adrian S. Fisher was the Legal Adviser in the Department of State.↩
- Supra. ↩
- In a letter of September 9 replying to Mr. Ford, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, George W. Perkins, advised him that “a note is going forward to the Soviet Embassy today, the text of which is identical with the draft transmitted to your Department” in the letter of August 29, except for the correction in the citation of the U.S. Code contained in Mr. Ford’s letter.↩