895.01/114: Telegram

The Ambassador in China ( Gauss ) to the Secretary of State

554. The purport of the Department’s 370 of May 8, 9 a.m. [p.m.] has been informally discussed with the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. He stated that efforts of the Foreign Office to bring the two groups together have been unsuccessful due to petty intransigence on both sides and indicated that while he did not wish to discourage our efforts to effect unity he was not sanguine that we could be successful. He intimated that our efforts to bring about unity might confuse rather than solve matters and referred to reports he had received that the radical group in America had threatened the radical group here with withdrawal of support if it agreed to cooperation with the “provisional government organization”.

Gauss