861.00/5665: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Morris)
The following message from Smith at Vladivostok is repeated in full for your information:
[Here follows text of telegram 594, November 15, 4 p.m., from the American member of the Inter-Allied Railway Committee, printed supra.]
I invite your particular attention to the third paragraph. I am disposed to accept at its face value the seeming new departure in Japanese policy but fear that this paragraph may disclose a disingenuous attempt to obtain our support for the elimination of Kolchak. It is highly desirable that Kolchak remain as the head of any Siberian government. His presence will give continuity to our policy and maintain the force and validity of the democratic assurances given by him in the notes exchanged with the heads of the principal Allied and Associated Governments last May. I still have confidence in his personal integrity and disinterested patriotism. He is favorably disposed toward the United States. He has however yielded to what may have been an unfortunate necessity of accepting [Page 598] the cooperation and support of corrupt and unenlightened reactionaries and his present failure is to be attributed largely, I believe, to their presence in his government. There is of course on our part the readiest response to the Japanese suggestion that the future government of Siberia include the Zemstvos and other organs of local self-government and be made to rest upon the consent of the masses of the people. Popular contentment is obviously a condition precedent to the development of a capable government and the continuance of the railway operation plan and the other economic assistance in which Japan and the United States are cooperating.
With the foregoing considerations in mind I desire you to discuss informally with the Japanese authorities the grave situation which has arisen in Siberia and to make it clear to them that the United States would welcome a solution by which Kolchak would remain at the head of the Siberian government but would have associated with him elements truly representative of the people instead of the reactionaries whose presence has stultified his efforts up to the present. It is not the purpose of this government to depart in any way from its principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of Russia. It desires above all that the Russians should be allowed to work out their own political destiny in their own way. If it does not appear that it would be acceptable to the Siberian people to have Admiral Kolchak continue at the head of their government, this government desires that none of its agents should do anything to defeat that will. It is desired only that Japan should know that in view of the relations which have existed in the past between Kolchak and the Allied and Associated Governments and in the interest of securing as orderly a succession of government as possible it would welcome a solution of the present difficulties through a reorganization of the Kolchak government along democratic lines rather than a complete break with the past, and that above all it would be most regrettable in the view of this Government if the Japanese should actively interfere to eliminate Kolchak in favor of some other personality whom they might conceive to be more favorably disposed toward them.
The suggestion of Smith’s informants that Japan is prepared to cooperate with the United States for the economic relief of the people of Siberia is very gratifying and any official suggestion of this kind which may be made should meet with encouragement on your part. For your entirely confidential information I may inform you that I shall shortly recommend to the President that he in turn recommend to Congress possibly in a special message first the continuance of American participation in the Inter-Allied Railway plan, second the organization of a so-called Russian Bureau, Incorporated, having a capital fund of $100,000,000 and an emergency fund of [Page 599] $25,000,000, the functions of which would be first to extend emergency relief in appropriate cases and second to revive normal economic life by financing shipments of manufactured necessities to Russia against exports of raw materials.
The situation in eastern Siberia is so unsettled and events are developing so rapidly that I leave it to you to communicate to the Consuls in Siberia, including Harris, to Smith, Stevens and if necessary Graves the attitude of this Government as outlined above and the Japanese attitude so far as it may be known to you and you may consider that it would be safe and helpful to communicate it to the persons mentioned.