File No. 861.00/3565
The Consul General at Irkutsk ( Harris) to the Secretary of State 1
[Received January 2, 1919.]
272. Referring corrected copy Department’s December 9, 4 p.m. As question referred to was being dealt with [through] government in Samara, I desire to go on record with the following instructions sent to Vice Consul Williams2 at that time when matter was referred by him to me.
On September 6 I telegraphed Williams as follows:
Under no circumstances are women and children to be held as hostages. Demand their immediate unconditional release if this has not already been done. Harris.
On September 10 I again telegraphed Williams, Samara:
I understand that English, French and possibly Americans are being held as hostages in Moscow. The object of my sending you my September 6 was to protect the foreigners held as hostages in Moscow. While this is an internal Russian affair apparently and we have no right to interfere, yet if foreigners, and possibly Americans, are to suffer indirectly from the practice of such methods it becomes our duty to take measures to prevent it. Make an unofficial representation in effect that nothing is to be gained by putting restraint upon these women and that Moscow should be informed that they have been set entirely free.
Endeavor to inform Wardwell, Moscow, by radio of my efforts and your efforts in this matter. This may help position of large number Allied subjects in European Russia. Harris.
As a result of our efforts in their behalf these hostages were placed under a sort of house arrest or restraint and they had not been entirely liberated at the time Samara was evacuated. I have never been able to ascertain what actually became of them.1 An investigation will be made, at once concerning the treatment accorded Catchpool.
- Sent via the Legation in China.↩
- George W. Williams, Vice Consul at Moscow, detailed to Samara.↩
- On Dec. 15 Consul General Harris transmitted a badly garbled telegram from the city government of Ekaterinburg, sent with the permission of the Omsk government, addressed to the International Red Cross delegates at Moscow, proposing the exchange of a number of named hostages, Czecho-Slovak and Russian. None of the names contained in the original message to Samara, quoted in enclosure to Consul Poole’s despatch of Sept. 2, appear in the list of Bolshevik hostages to be liberated. This telegram was forwarded Dec. 28 to the Legation in Sweden for transmission, if possible, to Moscow (File No. 861.00/3511).↩