793.94/11434a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss)
613. Press reports from Shanghai continue to be of a sensational character. For instance, Hallett Abend’s article in today’s New York Times under Shanghai date line December 4 states that:
“Colonel Price made a peremptory demand for the immediate removal of all Japanese soldiers, sentries and barricades from the American defense sector, threatening that if the Japanese did not instantly comply his Marines would clear them out. With many apologies, the Japanese Commander gave hurried orders and in 10 minutes all encroachments into the American sector were withdrawn.”
Reports of this character and of the character of the press report that the Japanese threw the American flag into the river (see Department’s 593, November 30, 7 p.m.) cause great misapprehension in the United States. It would therefore be very helpful if you could arrange with the correspondents there who make the reports to the press in the United States to keep you apprized as far as possible of what they are sending, and if you would then radio me a statement of the essential and official facts in regard to items likely to create misapprehension and embarrassment here.