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August 19, 1948 Dear Vivian: I appreciated yours of the seventeenth very much about Ferd Owens. I was talking to the Secretary of Agriculture about him just the other day and I hope things work out in a satis- factory manner. There seems to have been some rather fundamental misunderstanding between Ferd and the Department of Agriculture, brought about I think by Ferd's inability to understand that bureaucrats are hard to deal with and most obstreperous in some instances, They don't understand straight forward dealings of an honest man - they are always looking for a bug under a ship and, of course, the fact that Ferd got himself mixed up with the Mexican Government without the backing of his own Government is really what caused the trouble. Had he made arrangements in the first place through the regular channels, I think, the matter could have been well handled. I hope everything from now on will work out in a satisfactory manner because Ferd is a good man. Sincerely, Harry