Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270
Memorandum by General Marshall to General Yu Ta-wei
Dear General Yu: Colonel Caughey has spoken to me of his telephone conversation with you and his inability to arrange for a preliminary meeting between General Hsu and you and General Chou En-lai. Colonel Caughey tells me you feel that this proposal of mine has placed General Hsu in a very embarrassing position. In reply I would say you are placing me in a very embarrassing position. The time is fleeting. It will very probably be necessary for General Chou to leave for Yenan tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock, because the bulk of the documents makes it impractical for him to handle a discussion with his people by radio with any possibility of workable instructions within the short time available.
What I wanted at this meeting was not a discussion of the details at all, but rather a general discussion where General Chou’s views could be made understandable to you gentlemen and your general views on the subject could be made plain to him, with the additional assistance of your having available before 5 o’clock a typewritten copy of General Chou’s comments of this morning.
If you can’t agree to a 5 o’clock meeting, I think it urgently important that you at least see General Chou at 6 o’clock. What particularly [Page 1091] disturbs me is that you cannot see me until so late this afternoon that it makes it improbable that some discussion can take place with General Chou today.
I am not anticipating that you gentlemen will reach any agreement, but a beginning has to be made in this business of negotiations which are now confined to practically only three more days, a portion of which short period will be lost by General Chou’s trip which appears absolutely necessary.