861.00/4536b: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Morris)
The President has cabled me to instruct you to proceed to Vladivostok and after learning all you care to know from Graves to proceed westward, if you can with safety, to the headquarters of the Kolchak Government for the following purposes: To obtain from that Government, official and definite assurances as to the objects that they have in view with regard to the future Governmental regime in Russia and the methods by which they mean to set a new regime up, asking particular assurances with regard to the reform in land tenure, and the extension and security of the suffrage, and the choice and projected action of a constituent assembly, and also learn as definitely as possible the influences that Kolchak is under. The President states his object is to satisfy himself as to whether the Kolchak Government deserves the recognition, or at least the countenance, if not the support, of our Government; and suggests that there are two persons whom it might be worth your while to consult, both of them Englishmen, namely, Colonel R. A. Johnson of the Fifth Hants, and Colonel John Ward, commanding Middlesex Unit, the latter having been formerly a representative spokesman of labor in Great Britain and believed to have genuine popular principles and sympathies.