File No. 861.00/945
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Morris)1
Your January 17, 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. You are instructed to call upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs and in oral conversation remind him of the attitude of this Government towards a military mission to Siberia as set forth in Department’s telegram of January 16, 4 p.m.,2 in which you were informed of the reply made to the French proposals, declining to cooperate in a joint military expedition to Irkutsk and expressing the conviction that a military mission to Siberia would have disastrous results. The American Government has not learned since that France has taken any action in the direction proposed. The American Government feels very strongly that the common interests of all the powers at war with Germany demand from them an attitude of sympathy with the Russian people in their present unhappy struggle and that any movement looking towards the occupation of Russian territory would at once be construed as one hostile to Russia and would be likely to unite all factions in Russia against us thus aiding the German propaganda in Russia. The American Government trusts the Imperial Japanese Government will share this conviction and hopes that no unfortunate occurrence may make necessary the occupation of Vladivostok by a foreign force. The information received by this Government indicates that the situation there is quiet and is not one to cause alarm. You will say to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that in the opinion of the American Government the presence of more than one Japanese war vessel at Vladivostok at present is likely to be misconstrued and create a feeling of mistrust as to the purposes of the Allied Governments which Japan does not desire any more than the United States.
- Repeated Jan. 21, 7 p.m., to the Ambassadors in Great Britain (No. 6313) and France (No. 3092) “for your information and to be shown informally to Government to whom you are accredited,” and to the Minister in China, “for your confidential information and not to be communicated to Chinese Government.”↩
- See footnote 2, ante, p. 28.↩