893.5045/253: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (MacMurray)
324. Your telegram 492 of November 21, 4 p.m. I am surprised that Justice Johnson should make a report including matters not submitted to the jurists in view of the instructions which the commission received to confine their investigation to the origin and nature of the disturbances, etc. It will probably embarrass us greatly in view of the statement we made to the British Foreign Office that it was our wish to have the investigation limited as it was in these instructions. The evidence may, however, justify Johnson’s conclusions and were we to suppress them now or request Johnson to modify his report, it seems to the Department that we would incur severe criticism in this country and in China as having interfered with the action of an impartial justice and as having suppressed his conclusions. Perhaps matters of the same general nature are also dealt with in the other reports. Please inform me as soon as possible. In discussing the matter with the diplomatic representatives of other powers, you can, of course, make it clear to them that the directions to the commission were the only instructions Justice Johnson had [Page 716] and that we in no way interfered with him and were not informed in advance that he was considering making such a report. In view of the above we are unable to avoid agreeing with your conclusions that when it becomes necessary to publish the report it will have to be published as it stands. We doubt that it is advisable to request our Embassy in London to ask for McEuen’s removal before the British Government has had time to take action on its own motion.