Office of the Historian

893.0146/700

Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)

[Washington,] September 4, 1939.

I handed to Mr. Miller of the British Embassy, for Mr. Mallet,1 the aide-mémoire hereunder attached.2

I stated to Mr. Miller that we give this information in strict confidence: that our aide-mémoire contains certain statements which we have not before committed to writing; and that we consider it important that certain governments be without knowledge of what we might or might not do with our landed armed forces in China in the event of unlawful steps on their part toward taking over areas in which those armed forces are located. Mr. Miller stated that his Embassy regarded this matter as highly confidential and shared our views as they had just been expressed by me.

I then pointed out that in our aide-mémoire, on page 1, in the third paragraph, and in the second sentence thereof, we are speaking of circumstances of peacetime and that “any nation” includes the Chinese. Mr. Miller said that he understood.

I then said that, in passing, I wished to make, without implication of criticism, a simple objective statement of fact: we have been informed that British and French naval vessels and their armed forces landed therefrom recently at Amoy have withdrawn from Amoy;3 we have had, so far as I know, no official notification, either before or after the event. I said that I was mentioning this only because his Government and this Government have been working on the basis of an informal and unwritten understanding that in the event that either Government is making changes in the numbers and the locations of its landed armed forces in China it will try to consult with or notify the other Government in advance. I said that I well realized that there now exists a situation of emergency; but that I was mentioning this matter simply to keep the record complete. Mr. Miller said that he was sure that if there had been a slip-up it had been unintentional and his Government would be sorry.

Stanley K. Hornbeck
  1. Counselor of the British Embassy.↩
  2. Infra.↩
  3. For situation at Amoy, see vol. iv, pp. 108 ff.↩