To: Lawrence W. Cramer
From: Clarence Mitchell
Subject: National Defense Research Committee
January 25, 1943
This training is carried on at the University of Chicago and the nature of it is secret and technical.1 Mr. Hovde of the Office in Washington informed me that the University of Chicago representatives of NDRC have the right to hire an individual but such hiring must be approved by the Army or Navy. The branch of service for which the research is carried on apparently gives approval. If you wish to have me handle this matter further, I shall be glad to do so.
MS: copy, MP.
1. Lawrence W. Cramer handled this case, which involved Takeru Higuchi, who complained in a letter of 11/15/42 to Eleanor Roosevelt that he had asked to come to the University of Chicago for an interview for a position related to the NDRC’s work. He received a response that: “We have heard that through no fault of yours and before a F.B.I. investigation was even started, your case was closed, so that we will not be able to have your services. This decision was not made by members of the project, but somewhere up along the line, and apparently is connected with current national policy (or lack of a policy). No persons of Japanese ancestry are being hired for defense projects connected with the University here at present.” Upon receiving a response from the university on March 31 that a decision had been made not to use Higuchi’s services, Cramer on 4/17/43 referred the case to Truman K. Gibson Jr., acting civilian aide to the secretary of war, with a request for him to investigate it. See correspondence on this case in HqR66, Central Files. U.S. Government, Aliens in Defense, Specific Groups, Japanese; headnote on Japanese Americans.
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