Letter LONDON, 24 October 1943
PERSONAL
Many thanks for your letter of the 21st October. [1] I fully appreciate ‘the difficulties inherent in the situation’ and my one desire is to help in every way to overcome them. I can not, however, leave the matter there in view of the task my Government has entrusted to me.
I have an obligation to my Prime Minister in face of the many vital issues that will arise in the immediate future to inform him now that notwithstanding all my efforts I have failed ‘to ensure that in respect of major issues we will be fully informed and have an opportunity to express our views before decisions are taken’.
[2]
Before I do so I would ask you to let me come and talk the matter over with you. I am certain that in personal discussion we would find a way out and get rid of this question which should not be occupying either time or thought in these tremendous days. [3]
S. M. BRUCE
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1 Document 306.
2 See Document 302, note 4.
3 Churchill replied on 3 November 1943 that, while he understood Bruce’s difficulties, he did not see the need to discuss the matter further until Curtin was able to visit the U.K. On 8 November Bruce informed Churchill that he considered Churchill’s suggestion ‘hardly a satisfactory one’, but that he had ‘no alternative but to acquiesce and to continue, for the time being, my present anomalous and far from pleasant position’. Both letters are on file AA:M100, November 1943
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[PRO:PREM 4/50/11]