861.00/5248: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul at Vladivostok (Caldwell)
For Heid. Consulate’s 511, September 20, 10 a.m.
Suggest you read reference in Consul’s 518, September 24, 4 p.m.80 His recommendations for rendering economic aid differ somewhat from yours. Considerable of the material to be sold to the Cooperative Societies is in process of shipment by rail to the coast by the War Department and the Department is willing to have this material go forward believing it better to do this than to allow promises in the contracts which have been signed to be broken.
After full consideration of your own and other similar reports from Vladivostok and vicinity, this Government, in fulfillment of undertaking of the President and his associates at Paris, will continue nevertheless to assist Admiral Kolchak and to relieve to whatever extent possible the economic distress of the people of Siberia. The Department appreciates thoroughly the existing difficulties but feels that these only make more imperative the continuance, with whatever promise of success, of efforts to bring about more normal conditions of life among the people.
Copies of contract between Cooperatives and War Department80 have been mailed to you, and owing to shipments of material being under way the Department believes you should defer proceeding to Washington. We have endeavored without result to date to obtain from the War Department full particulars of your appointment as well as instructions as to how you should draw salary for the three months mentioned in your telegram. Hope to advise you shortly.