Office of the Historian

The Secretary of War (Stimson) to President Roosevelt 56

Washington, December 13, 1941.

Dear Mr. President: I am sending a draft57 which may assist you in framing a message to Chiang Kai-shek for such conference in Chungking as you suggested this morning.

Since leaving you I find that there is here already a military mission from Great Britain duly authorized to confer on just such matters as you are suggesting; also that there are fully qualified representatives of Australia, the Dutch East Indies, and China, who could confer with us here on just such matters as you suggested for Singapore. I suggest that such a preliminary conference might be held here instead of at Singapore.

So far as the Moscow conference is concerned, I do not feel that I am in possession of sufficient acquaintance with the addressee or familiarity with what you propose to discuss with him to make any attempt at such a draft by me of very much use to you.

Faithfully yours,

Henry L. Stimson
  1. Photostatic copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.↩
  2. For text as sent, see infra.↩