893.51/7725
Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State1
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The indications are that the Chinese Government has applied to this Government for a loan of $1,000,000,000, and this memorandum will be posited on an assumption that such is the fact.
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There are indications that the subject of this loan was broached by Chiang at the Cairo Conference.2 There have been heard rumors to the effect that Chiang was given encouragement to believe that the requests by China for such a loan would meet with favorable response. There are indications, also, that Chiang strongly urged that a campaign for the reopening of the Burma Road be embarked upon at once; and rumors have been heard and have been seen in print to the effect that Chiang was told that this could not be done. Whatever the facts may be so far as the Cairo Conference is concerned, China’s desire for a loan has apparently been formally expressed and operations for the reopening of the Burma Road have not been embarked upon.
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- This memorandum bears no title, addressee, or signature. There are indications that it was prepared in the office of Stanley K. Hornbeck, then Adviser on Political Relations (memorandum of conversation with Hornbeck, 893.10/2–559).↩
- Roosevelt told Stilwell and Davies at Cairo on December 6, 1943, that Chiang had asked for a loan of one billion dollars; see Stilwell, p. 251. The Davies notes on this conversation contain the same assertion by Roosevelt.↩