811.20 Defense (M)/472/22: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Johnson)
108. Your 284, June 22, and 291, June 24. Same matter was urgently brought before the Department by K. C. Li, Head of the Wah Chang Trading Corporation, stating that by cable of June 23 he has credentials and authority to sell for the “National Resources Commission” of the Republic of China.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation today agreed to buy for national defense emergency stocks, from the Wah Chang Trading Corporation the 5,940 tons of wolframite (tungsten ore) and the 5,670 tons of antimony regulus (metal) represented by K. C. Li to be stored in, or in transit to, Haiphong.
You may so inform the Chinese authorities.
[Page 648]Department is advising the American Consul at Hanoi of this purchase and making it clear that it is a highly important transaction for national defense and asking him to try to obtain immediately permission from the Governor General for export.