893.20 Mission/9–745
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State (Acheson)
Memorandum of Conversation
Subject: Furnishing to China of military advisory groups; Economic aid for China.
| Participants: | The President; |
| Dr. T. V. Soong; | |
| Acting Secretary, Mr. Acheson |
At eleven o’clock this morning, at the President’s request, I was present when he received Dr. T. V. Soong. The President stated that he had been giving very considerable thought to the communications from the Generalissimo relative to the furnishing of a military advisory group of American military, naval and air personnel and to the arming of additional Chinese divisions.… He [the President] said that he could say categorically to Dr. Soong that personnel could and would be furnished to advise on these military matters. He said that a careful search of the records had been made and had not disclosed anything relative to the commitment to which the Generalissimo referred as having been made at the Cairo meeting.
Dr. Soong interrupted the President to ask whether he had consulted Mr. Harry Hopkins. The President said that he had talked with Mr. Hopkins and would talk with him again. The President added that, with the cessation of hostilities, his powers in certain respects had changed and that he had to consider the views of the Congress in this matter.