File No. 861.00/3088a
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Irkutsk (Harris)1
The Department is without adequate current reports of conditions both civil and military at Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novo Nikolaevsk, Omsk, Petropavlovsk, Ekaterinburg and other centers in Siberia, also the Volga front. In this matter your most careful consideration is required. You represent the Government’s highest responsible authority at present available in Siberia for reliable information to guide its decisions and conclusions. The Government of the United States must rely on you for facts upon which a decision of its course of action may be based. Until such course of action is determined it desires you personally, if practicable, and certainly through your subordinates and without committing this Government, to keep in touch with the leaders of all movements and report regularly the progress of their endeavors, the development of the various efforts to establish law and order which are being made, and the strength and character of support from the Russian population which they attract. Reports must be made by telegraph.
For your guidance, the Government of the United States is not prepared to recognize any new government in Russia; but this must not be construed as a lack of sympathy with the efforts of the Russian people to erect a government which is able to protect individual rights and to perform its international obligations. The Government of the United States has stated that it desires where practicable to steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance and you may authorize consular representatives wherever opportunity offers to give aid and advice to local governments in their efforts to improve local conditions. This, of course, applies only to local and municipal authorities and not to any others. The purpose of the United States to assist Russia has not been modified. It has not only arranged jointly with France and Great Britain to ration the Murmansk and Archangel districts for the winter but is now planning practical measures of economic relief in Siberia additional to the moderate military assistance which the demands of the western front have enabled it to send to Vladivostok. The necessary tonnage to carry supplies has been allotted. Supplies will be distributed under the direction of the representatives of the War Trade Board at Vladivostok.
Please acknowledge receipt immediately.
- Sent via the Legation in China.↩