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BRITISH PASSPORT CONTROL OFFICE
Letter No. HI
BY SAFE HAND
MOST SECRET
Room 3801, 630 Fifth Avenue
Nev York
4th August, 1941
Dear Maude,
We have been informed from a most secret
source that a mission consisting of Turkish Naval
and Air Force officers left Turkey for the U.S.A.
via the Persian Gulf on 16.7.41-    It is knov/n that
at least two of them have been recruited by the Ger-
man service as agents to report on the state of
American aircraft production, the expansion of the
building programme, deliveries to the U.K. and
Middle East, and important nev: inventions, includ-
ing D. F'ing apparatus, and also to provide a com-
prehensive list of American firms with precise
statements of their actual production.
The identity of the officers in question is
at present unknown and it appears that they will not
transmit their information direct to the German service.
They will, it seems, include information of the kind
which the Germans want in their official reports to the
Turkish General Staff and the Germans hope to make arrange-
ments to have access to those reports in Ankara.
Will you pass the above to the Mission and
arrange for the U.S. service authorities to be inform-
ed, pointing out the necessity of handling this with the
utmost caution in view of the secrecy of the source?
Yours ever.
(Sgnd.) C.H. Ellis
Major John Maude,
The British Embassy,
WASHINGTON, D.C.