av September 29 1949 At 5 30 in the afternoon of September 19 19kg Mr Kennan asked Francis Russell John Davies Robert Hooker and myself to come to his office He said that this Government had learned of an atomic explo- sion in Russia which the President would announce soon and that we were requested to provide answers to questions concerning this development which might be asked after the President's announcement We worked on this problem for about two hours and Mr Kennan and Mr Hooker and I worked further on it at Mr Kennan s house from 9 to ll p m On Tuesday September 20 we worked on the problem some more Late in the afternoon Rear Admiral Arthur C Davis head of the Joint Staff came in and gave us the attitude of the Joint Chiefs on the memorandum we were preparing of questions and answers On Wednesday morning September 21 we were in formed that the President was not ready to make the announcement of the atomic explosion in Russia However we continued to perfect our questions and answers and called Admiral Davis to see that we were in harmony with the Joint Chiefs of Staff We had our document completed by 5 30 in the afternoon at which time I took a copy over to Mr Ross at the White House to have it ready in case the President would decide suddenly to make the announcement Mr Ross and I discussed the pros and cons on the question He felt that the President should not yet make the an- nouncement as Secretary Acheson and Foreign Minister Bevin of Great Britain were recommending against it at this time an announcement by the President would drama- tize the situation too much and the American people had about all the bad news they could stand with the current possibility of strikes On Friday morning September 23 at 9 o'clock we were informed that the President would make the announcement at 11 We thereupon made arrangements to make our memo of questions and answers available for information to the Field to responsible officers of the Department and to the members of the Cabinet I checked with Admiral Davis 1 'D E ixs' msn Amherst 7 19 -2- to see that they would follow the same procedure at the Pentagon When the announcement was made at the White House at 11 o'clock the information contained in our memorandum was immediately started on its way to appropriate people in Washington and abroad A copy of our memorandum is attached Carlton Savage Authority iLjEQ y This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu