Office of the Historian

893.24/1683a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Gauss)

Washington, January 1, 1944—9 p.m.

7. 1. Department is making every effort to expedite agreement here in regard to question of reverse lend-lease and negotiation of supplementary financial and other provisions. It is hoped that instructions at least to conclude general reciprocal aid agreement can be sent you within the next few days. (Embassy’s 2514, December 30, 10 a.m.4)

2. Reference Embassy’s 2428, December 16, 2 p.m.,5 concerning text of reciprocal aid agreement. Draft which Embassy received from General Stilwell’s6 headquarters must be an earlier draft. Draft agreement which was handed to Dr. Soong7 in Washington on May 158 has been approved by War Department and other interested agencies and is final draft. Text of draft handed to Dr. Soong differed slightly from text forwarded by the Department under instruction no. 250, March 17, 1943,9 and contained the following minor textual changes: first paragraph, “Each contracting government undertook to provide the other” should read “The Government of the Republic of China and the Government of the United States undertook to provide each other”; paragraph numbered 2, “in the Republic of China” should read “from the Republic of China”; paragraph numbered 2 (b), “may make apart from the arrangements covered by the agreement” should read “may make pursuant to Clause D below, or apart from the arrangements covered by this agreement”; [Page 825] paragraph numbered 2(d),” services specified” should read “services such as those specified”; paragraph 3, “acting when possible through their appropriate military or civilian administrative authorities” should read “acting through their appropriate military or civilian administrative authorities”; paragraph numbered 4 “appropriate record of aid received under this arrangement, except for miscellaneous facilities and services, will be kept by each government” should read “appropriate record of aid received under this arrangement will be kept by each government”.

3. Suggested phraseological changes to be made in text of your reply are approved (paragraph 1, Embassy’s 2404, December 14, 11 a.m.10). You should also insert word “official” before “establishments of the United States of America” in the first paragraph of your reply.

Hull
  1. Ibid., p. 587.↩
  2. Ibid., p. 585.↩
  3. Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, Commanding General, U. S. Army Forces in China, Burma, and India.↩
  4. T. V. Soong, Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
  5. Foreign Relations, 1943, China, p. 538.↩
  6. Ibid., p. 529.↩
  7. Foreign Relations, 1943, China, p. 583.↩