WAR DEPARTMENT
                           WASHINGTON
 
                                        March 14, 1942
 
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT:
 
     This is a cursory outline report on my visit to Panama.
I am omitting figures and details. My views in general coincided with 
those of General Andrews and his officers.
 
                    I.
 
               The problem
 
     1. At present the Canal is vulnerable to a sufficiently 
heavy air attack. Such an attack from one carrier might be sufficient. 
From two or three carriers it would have a strong chance of success.
 
     On the other hand, a successful attack from adjacent 1and 
bases in Central or South America is not considered likely owing to the 
difficulty which an enemy would have on concentrating sufficient planes on 
a secret base within sufficiently short range.
 
     2. A heavy successful attack at either of two places might,
by draining Gatun Lake, close the Canal for over two years.
 
     3. After a carrier has released its planes for attack, no 
subsequent means of defense against those planes can sufficiently ensure
the safety of the Canal.
 
     4. Therefore by far the most effective defense is by a long 
distance patrol to intercept and destroy the carrier before she gets within 
range of the Canal.
 
                         II.
 
                    Proposed outer patrols
 
     We discussed with the Bomber Command at Panama the essentials 
of a theoretically perfect outer patrol, it being admitted that the 
existing outer patrol is very imperfect. A carrier attack from the Pacific 
is assumed to be the most likely attack, and the geographic approaches to 
the Canal make an approach by a carrier from the Pacific more difficult to 
intercept than one from the Atlantic where the Carribean Sea is encircled 
on the east by islands which leave only a comparatively few narrow entrances