To: Josef Stalin
Moscow
 
     The crisis in Egypt with its threat to the supply route to Russia has led Prime Minister
Churchill to send me an urgent message asking whether forty A twenty bombers destined for
Russia and now in Iraq can be transferred to the battle in Egypt.  It is impossible for me to express
a judgement on this matter because of limited information here.  I am therefore asking that you
make the decision in the interest of total war effort.
 
Roosevelt