Office of the Historian

740.0011 P.W./7–1845

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Moffat)

[Washington,] July 18, 1945.
Participants: Colonel Arthur Hutchinson, OSS;
Mr. Donald Gardin, OSS;
Mr. Max W. Bishop, Foreign Service Officer;
Mr. Kenneth P. Landon, SEA;72
Mr. Abbot Low Moffat, SEA.

In the course of a conversation Colonel Hutchinson stated that a very strong protest had been sent by OSS to the Generalissimo about Chinese military activities reported in the neighborhood of Mongyawng. I told Colonel Hutchinson the substance of a top secret telegram from Chungking73 which stated that the British had also protested the reported operations and requested Wedemeyer to ask Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw the 93rd Division from the border region even though it is located entirely in China; that Chiang Kai-shek stated that the Chinese would not act against either the British or the Thai, but that both Thailand and Indochina are in the China theater of which he is the recognized Allied commander, and that he reserves the right to have his troops operate in Thailand at any time, although such operations will be conducted only against Japanese forces.

  1. Division of Southeast Asian Affairs.↩
  2. Telegram No. 1162, July 14, 8 a.m., from the Ambassador in China, p. 134.↩