893.102 Tientsin/295: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Tientsin (Caldwell)
42. Your 110, June 22, 6 p.m., and subsequent messages exchanged between the Commander in Chief and Colonel Hawthorne in regard to the American Marine detachment at Tientsin.
Department approves your attitude as reported in your telegram under reference and offers the following observations which you should communicate informally to Colonel Hawthorne as indicating the general policy which, subject to modifications necessitated by technical considerations, the Department would like to see followed:
The Department would prefer that in the present situation no commitment be made that would bind the American Marine detachment at Tientsin to guard or protect any sector or area as such.94 Department understands that you and Colonel Hawthorne concur in this view and that you and he are in agreement that in the event of an emergency requiring such action, effort will be made to concentrate American citizens in the Marine barracks where they and other nationals to the capacity of the barracks will be afforded such protection as may be appropriate and practicable in the light of existing general instructions. Should there be advance indication that such an emergency is likely to develop, the Department believes that American nationals should be advised to withdraw from Tientsin, and it would seem advisable that similar steps be taken toward reducing the number of possible non-American refugees likely to desire to proceed to the American barracks. The facilities of the barracks are of course limited and the Department assumes that the barracks would be regarded only as a temporary emergency refuge and that, in the event of the continuance of the emergency necessitating concentration there, American and other refugees would endeavor to withdraw from the Tientsin area by the first available reasonably safe means. The Department feels that, consistent with our general humanitarian practice, the question of the availability of the Marine barracks as a temporary [Page 210] emergency refuge for nationals of other countries should be kept on as broad a basis as is practicable in the light of local conditions, without exclusive reference to any particular nationality.
Please have constantly in mind the position outlined in Department’s 138, August 10, noon, 1937, to Nanking,95 of which a copy was sent to Tientsin.
Repeated to Chungking, Peiping and Shanghai.
Please repeat code text by air mail to Tokyo.
- In despatch No. 2208, August 12, the Counselor of Embassy in China at Peiping reported that an agreement signed in August 1937 for use of American forces in the defense of Tientsin was canceled by Colonel Hawthorne on July 6 (893.102 Tientsin/491).↩
- Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. iv, p. 252.↩