Office of the Historian

893.00/7–2144

Summary Notes of Conversations Between Vice President Wallace and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek42

undated

[For edited notes of discussions on June 21, 22, 23, and 24, see Department of State, United States Relations With China (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949), pages 549–559. The omission [Page 232] from text of notes on the discussion of June 21 as there printed (top of page 550), is as follows:]

Mr. Wallace told Pres. Chiang of Pres. Roosevelt’s comment that the British did not consider China a great power; that Pres. Roosevelt wanted China to be a great power in fact as well as in theory; that at Cairo the British were opposed to giving any reality to China’s position as one of the “Big Four”, and that at Teheran43 the Russians were cool regarding China. Mr. Wallace then quoted to Pres. Chiang the following statement made by Pres. Roosevelt:44 “Churchill45 is old. A new British Government will give Hongkong to China and the next day China will make it a free port.”

  1. Prepared by the Chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs. In a memorandum of July 18 Ruth Bacon of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs stated to the Secretary of State: “It is understood that a copy of the ‘Notes’ was handed to the President by the Vice President upon his return from China”; a copy was submitted to the Secretary by the Director of the same Office on July 18, and copies were transmitted by the Department to the Ambassadors in China and the Soviet Union respectively on July 21 and 29 (893.00/7–2144; 811.003 Wallace, Henry A./7–2944).↩
  2. For documentation on the Cairo and Tehran Conferences, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943.↩
  3. For a memorandum outlining President Roosevelt’s statement to President Chiang on this subject, by the President’s Chief of Staff (Leahy), May 29, 1945, see ibid., p. 888.↩
  4. Winston S. Churchill, British Prime Minister.↩