393.1115/642: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Tientsin (Caldwell)
34. Your 37, September 9, 3 p.m. The Department in formulating its instruction regarding the withdrawal of American citizens from China considered the situation in China as a whole with the exception of certain consular districts to which the instruction appeared wholly inapplicable. It is realized that there are differences in the relative degree of insecurity existing in various localities in China but it would obviously have been impossible for the Department to particularize as to the relative urgency as between one locality and another of effecting the withdrawal of Americans. The Department has given careful consideration to your estimate of the present degree of security at Tientsin; but, without taking issue with that estimate, feels that there is none the less a risk of the situation developing in such a way that Americans may be placed in peril at a time when means of evacuation could not be made available as they can at present. The Department desires that the Consulate General quietly bring to the attention of American citizens at Tientsin a general estimate of the situation as outlined in the Department’s 206, September 2, 6 p.m., to Nanking, taking into account not only immediate circumstances but also probabilities over a period of months, and pointing out that the American Government in a desire to fulfill its responsibilities toward American citizens feels that it should bring the situation to the attention of American citizens. The Consulate General should point out also that the danger may increase and that it cannot be guaranteed that existing opportunities for evacuation will continue indefinitely; but that such decision as American citizens may make must, of course, be on their own responsibility.