393.1115/1113g: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Counselor of Embassy in China (Lockhart), at Peiping
277. As you are aware the Congress at the closing days of the last session placed limited funds at the disposal of the Department58 which may be used to assist in the evacuation and temporary maintenance of Americans having to leave China due to developments there.
It will be appreciated that the aid which can be given is limited not only in scope but in time and is definitely of an emergency nature.
[Page 350]The funds available to the Department are so limited that while advances on promissory notes may be made to Americans without immediately disposable funds for their temporary maintenance awaiting transportation, it is not contemplated that such assistance shall be on a per diem basis. It is understood that our officers in Japan and the High Commissioner in the Philippines, under instructions and authorizations already issued, will, where necessary, make such temporary loans for maintenance at a minimum cost to our Government. Such Americans receiving assistance should be informed that this is necessarily on a temporary basis and that they should return to the United States as rapidly as arrangements therefor can be made by them or for them.
As it is obviously impossible under existing circumstances for the Department or for the officers in China to forecast definitely how long the present situation in the Far East may continue, the Department is of the opinion that officers should bring to the attention of those Americans who are not in need of Government assistance but who have left China and are residing temporarily in Japan or in the Philippines that it may be in their own interest to return to the United States as soon as they may conveniently be able to make arrangements to that end.
The foregoing considerations, it is deemed necessary, should be brought to the attention of all officers in China and Japan and to the authorities of our Government in the Philippines for their background and guidance.
Americans failing to make use of available opportunities for return to the United States cannot depend indefinitely on loans for maintenance abroad.
The Department is prepared, if it is found absolutely essential, to make grants within the limitations imposed upon it to the War and Navy Departments for reimbursement to Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel of unavoidable extraordinary expenses incurred in evacuation not payable from other appropriated funds. This phase is being handled in Washington by the Department with the other Departments concerned.
The foregoing does not in any way affect the instructions of the Department with regard to the general accounting procedure or the specific practice which has been outlined in previous telegrams with respect to the aid extended in this emergency and with respect to the taking of promissory notes in all cases for aid extended.
Please repeat this telegram to concerned offices in China and to Hong Kong and Tokyo for dissemination in Japan. Repeated by Department to Manila and copies furnished War and Navy Departments.
- Third Deficiency Appropriation Act, approved August 25, 1937; 50 Stat. 755, 770.↩