393.1115/698
The Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: In connection with the subject of our effort to get American, nationals to come out of China, together with our effort to afford means of transportation, certain points mentioned in recent telegrams are significant.
In telegram 617, August 31, 4 p.m., from Shanghai,98 Mr. Gauss states: “Naval vessels in these waters are not suitable for evacuation except in an extreme and desperate emergency.”
In telegram 0003, September 3, from Shanghai, the Commander-in-Chief states: “The great bulk of our nationals will not leave China until the necessity becomes immediate and pressing and they realize [Page 306] that their lives are endangered and their business or occupation are permanently lost.”
In other telegrams from Shanghai, it has been reported that a group of more than 100 missionaries at Mokanshan (a summer resort in the hills of Chekiang Province, about 100 miles west of Shanghai) have informed Mr. Gauss that they will not now come out but will stay where they are through September watching developments.
Other telegrams indicate that it can be expected that almost no Catholic missionaries will come out.
We may make it our policy to “withdraw” from China, to get our nationals out, to remove this country from contact with or affirmative interest in the current hostilities and the outcome thereof in China; but, the traditional interest of the people of this country in China and the Chinese, the investments which the people of this country have made in China (a considerable portion of which is in the physical equipment of schools, hospitals and churches), the presence of several thousand of our nationals in China, etc., etc., will continue to be facts,—and nothing that we can say, nothing that we can do, no attitude that we can adopt, no outcries on the part of any part of our population will or can obliterate or eliminate those facts. We cannot by any process close our eyes to, turn our back upon, or wash our hands of the China situation and several problems which hostilities between the Japanese and the Chinese create and lay upon our doorstep.
Toward meeting responsibilities which we cannot avoid, presence of additional American cruisers in Far Eastern waters would, in the opinion of the undersigned, be useful.
- Not printed.↩