FE Files, Lot 52–354
Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State48
With regard to the specific “charge that it is on the advice of reactionary officials in the State Department that Chiang Kai-shek is keeping his best armies out of the war”, the simple fact is that the nearest approach to “advice” given by any officials in the Department of State in this context has been an expression of an opinion that civil strife in China, at all times unfortunate, would be especially unfortunate at a time when China is engaged in a desperate struggle of self-defense against an armed invader. The implication of this expression of opinion was that the Chinese Government should try to maintain peace by processes of conciliation between and among all groups or factions in China. And, the course which Chiang Kai-shek has been pursuing is not “keeping his best armies out of the war”. Both the armies of the National Government and the “communist” armies are fighting the Japanese. No Chinese armies are actively engaged in large scale offensive operations against the Japanese—for the reason, principally, that there is lacking to all Chinese armies types and amounts of equipment which are essential to such operations; but this situation is one which both the Chinese Government and the American Government are endeavoring to remedy as equipment becomes available.
With regard to the specific charge that “the State Department in Washington has informed Chungking’s representatives that our Government would be displeased if complete unity was established in China between the Kuomintang and the communists”, what this statement alleges is the exact opposite of the fact. The State Department in Washington has at all times taken the position, both in diplomatic contexts and publicly, that the United States favors “complete unity” among the Chinese people and all groups or organizations thereof.
With regard to the specific charge that “these officials continue the old policy of ‘war against the communists’ in China”, this Government has had no such policy, either “old” or new. This Government has in fact viewed with skepticism many alarmist accounts of the “serious menace” of “communism” in China. We have, for instance, as is publicly and well known, declined to be moved by Japanese contentions that presence and maintenance of Japanese armed forces in [Page 249] China were and would be desirable for the purpose of “combatting Communism”.
With regard to the specific charge that officials of this Government “tell Chungking it must continue to fight the communists if it wishes United States friendship”, the simple fact is that no officials of this Government ever have told Chungking either that it must fight or that it must continue to fight the “Communists”; this Government holds no such brief; this Government desires Chinese unity and deprecates civil strife in China; this Government treats the Government of China as an equal; it does not dictate to the Government of China; it does not make United States friendship contingent; it regards unity within China, unity within the United States, unity within each of the countries of the United Nations group, and unity among the United Nations as utterly desirable toward effectively carrying on war against the Axis powers and toward creation and maintenance of conditions of just peace when the United Nations shall have gained the victory which is to be theirs.
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This statement was printed in the New York Worker, October 16, 1942, and quoted in other papers, as having been handed Mr. Browder by the Under Secretary of State (Welles) on October 12. No indication on file copy as to office of origin.
See testimony by Earl Browder on April 27, 1950, in regard to this statement from Mr. Welles, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 81st Cong., 2d sess., pursuant to S. Res. 231, pt. 1, pp. 675, 682, 686–687, 704–705.
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