811.003 Wallace, Henry A./5–2444
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Grew)
Mr. Grew: At last week’s Cabinet meeting the President concluded the meeting by referring to the trip he had asked the Vice-President to make to China and stated he had asked him to take up a number of important matters with the Generalissimo.
The President stated that he was greatly concerned with the outlook relative to China and that he was apprehensive for the first time as to China holding together for the duration of the war. He felt the Vice-President could perform a very important function for the United Nations by making the trip at this time. He stated that he had asked Vice-President Wallace to explain to the Generalissimo that China had been recognized as one of the four Great Powers primarily because of the insistence of Secretary Hull at the Moscow Conference,32 and to elaborate on this by expressing the hope that the Generalissimo must realize this and could not let America down after America had pinned such faith and hope on China as a World Power.
- For correspondence on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1943, China, pp. 819 ff.↩