Roosevelt Papers: Telegram
President Roosevelt to Generalissimo Chiang1
priority
Personal and secret to the Generalissimo from the President.
I have been very pleased to hear from you of your satisfaction with your meeting with Mountbatten and Somervell.2
The Conference at Moscow has made splendid progress up to the moment and I am very hopeful that the results will be beneficial all around. I am pressing for the full blown partnership of China, Great Britain, Russia and the United States.
I am not yet sure whether Stalin can meet me but, under any circumstances, I am anxious to meet you with Churchill at a reasonably early date somewhere between the twentieth and the twenty-fifth of November. I think Alexandria would be a good meeting place. There are good accommodations there.
I will bring a small staff with me including our highest ranking Army, Navy and Air officers. I should think the Conference would last about three days. I know you will not want to be away from China long, but it is far better for me to get away now than later.
I am looking forward to seeing you because I am sure there are many things that can only be satisfactorily settled if we can meet face to face. Please keep this very confidential.
- Sent to the American Military Mission to China, via Army channels, as War Department telegram 3701 to the Mission.↩
- Madame Chiang had sent Roosevelt, on October 21, 1943, via Stilwell (who had forwarded it via Marshall), a message in which, among other things, she reported (1) that Mountbatten, Somervell, and Stilwell had had several conferences with Chiang and his staff; (2) that, so far as she knew, “everything portends to the fullest cooperation”; and (3) that Chiang was very favorably impressed with Mountbatten and Somervell (Defense Files).↩