RE-F B A- -4- S l - SE GRE JJ 310 Se Street s K Washington 3 D c 2 July 1954 Mr Boria C W Ha gelin Dear Boris Thank you very much for your letter of 21 June in response to mine of 15 June First I want to aay that we are certainly very sorry if' the decision on the sale of the M-209's gave you some pain because as you indicate you had started certain actions based upon previous inforne tion I can only offer our very sincere apology and I wish to reiterate that the serious difficulties which led to the decision were entireJ unforeseen Those d ifficu lties involve certain legal tecbnica lities connected With the laws governing the disposal of surplus government property I can in this connectio answer the point which you said you could not quite understand in my last letter nruooly statement tbat we are afraid that the M-209 machines might get into wrong hands I neant by this that if' we were to conform to the laws governing the d l eposaJ of surplus propertr d as it turned out we would have bad to contorm we shouid have had to call for bids and accept the offer of the highest bidder Now under such circumstances the highest bidder might not turn out to be you or your representative he might buy a lot of' machines at a cheap price and then ell them at a low price - to gamblers smugglers etc tba t is people whose use of the ma chines would only make trouble for our police authorities That 1s all I reant by 11wrong handB 11 I hope this will explain the queation ip your mind By all means send us one of your tape control devices for the M-209 for we are still interested in seeing how you 'W'ould per form the modit'icatlon and compare e with our own I'm very Qorry to learn that you feeJ rather worn out and I hope you will get a real vacation this BUI lll' er I can theref'ore well understand your reluctance to come to London just for a f'riendJ y visit with maa nd will forgive you this time lqr do I think it viJJ be necesaB 4 Y for Boris Junior to co but in case you or he should wish to communicate with I eJ pend a London address I will be there t'rom 9 JuJ y to about 26 July Af'ter that I expect to come home directly but in case you or o should feel that a visit to Zug would be or real interest in connection 'With eeeing soma new model I eouJ d come for a visit there for a few days E03 3 h 2 PL 813-36 50 rC 3605 Declassified and approved for release by NSA on 01-15-2015 pursuantto E 0 1352a GECRElJ LJEC ID A64 951 Thank you for letting us keep it another 100nth or two With most cordial greetings to you and love to Annie I am Sincerely London address c o Colonel Barton s Flat 705 7 North Aud ley Street London Wl Pulling 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