711.61/4–1647: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 11:55 p.m.]
1405. Kosmos 46. Personal for Acheson for his eyes only from Marshall. There follows complete “memorandum of conversation” of my talk with Stalin28 last night. Please deliver it to the President. I want no publicity whatsoever at this time. Please request the President accordingly.
. . . . . . .
“He [Marshall] said he would like to say a few words on China where, as the Generalissimo knows, he had spent over a year in a struggle between two concepts of government—one of which was the Communist and the other the National Government. He said the Communists were operating on a revolutionary basis with armed force and the National Government had many rotten elements in it. He said in the first months when he was there, the Communists had been more disposed to negotiation and compromise than the National Government and he felt that the first breakdown of the agreed truce was due more to the fault of the National Government than the Communist[s], but that subsequently events had gotten worse and both sides had committed impossible acts, until at last the United States had been forced to withdraw from any participation in this matter.”
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Smith
- Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.↩