Hopkins Papers: Telegram
Generalissimo Chiang to the Chinese Foreign Minister (Soong) in Washington1
secret
Chungking, May 29,
1943.
Please submit orally to the President the following points for his consideration:
- (1)
- Has Great Britain committed herself to engage her navy in giving effective support for joint action in the Andaman Sea and is she determined to retake Rangoon?
- (2)
- Is the United States providing the same naval strength for Anakim as that indicated by General Arnold in Chungking, and is [Page 386] Great Britain sending an equal or greater number of naval units? Now that the North African campaign has come to a successful conclusion, is it possible to increase the strength of the naval participation for Anakim in order to accelerate the capture of Rangoon?
- (3)
- Is the U. S. Army participating in the campaign, and if so, how many divisions will be engaged?
- (4)
- While I do not doubt that Great Britain will be able to fulfill her commitments in regard to the plan decided upon by the President with Mr. Churchill, it seems to me that it is necessary for the President to exercise his influence continually in order to prevent delay in the execution of the plan.
- (5)
- To carry out Anakim it is absolutely essential to synchronize the movements of the army attacking in the north with amphibious operations against Southern Burma so that both could take place at the same time. Otherwise, if the two operations were not coordinated in their movements or either of them should take independent action, they would be exposed to being defeated in detail by the enemy. It is earnestly hoped that the President would pay special attention to this point in regard to what the British propose to do.
- This message appears to have been delivered by Soong to Hopkins at the same time that he delivered Chiang’s telegram of May 29 to Roosevelt, supra. There is no record of Soong’s oral presentation of the substance of this telegram to Roosevelt. Between May 28 and June 1, Roosevelt was at Hyde Park.↩