Ira Hirschmann was bored in Istanbul.  The Balkan states were leaving the war, and after the Mefkure disaster, no ships were arriving.  He wanted to go where there was more action: Romania!  He wrote to the WRB to ask if they would support his trip to Bucharest to investigate the situation in Romania, which had left the Axis a month earlier.  The WRB drafted this cable agreeing, but the cable was never sent.  A week later, Hirschmann received a cable requesting he wait in Istanbul for now.