893.24/1327: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China ( Gauss )5
424. In view of the increasing importance of the overland and air routes between China and the USSR, both as regards supplies for [Page 595] China and raw materials for the United Nations, the Department urgently desires to receive by telegraph all available pertinent information which might assist it in evaluating the actual and potential traffic capacity of these means of transport.
Please describe in essential detail available routes, naming termini and important junctions, together with estimates of amounts and kinds of cargo moving now and in proximate future, factors affecting flow of traffic such as necessity for provision of gasoline, etc., and any other items bearing on the subject. Have you any suggestions as to steps which the Department might take to expedite such transport?
The Department has noted the data in your no. 527, May 8, 10 a.m.
A similar inquiry is being made at Kuibyshev.
- Similar telegram sent to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union as No. 243 on the same date.↩