Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270
Minutes of Meeting Between General Marshall, General Hsu Yung-chang, and General Yu Ta-wei at 5 Ning Hai Road, Nanking, June 22, 1946, 9:30 a.m.
| Also present: | General Pee |
| Colonel Caughey | |
| Colonel Hill |
General Yu: I understood fully General Chou’s suspicions. I have to understand his suspicions in order to be fair to him in negotiations. In this case, they are not justified because if the Government had decided to attack, they would have done so after 12:00 o’clock today and not extended the truce. With reference to procedure, the Generalissimo [Page 1134] pays the greatest attention to your recommendations, but we don’t want to sign the documents previous to final settlement. When would this meeting take place today between General Chou En-lai, General Hsu, General Marshall and myself?
General Marshall: At 11:00 o’clock.
General Yu: Where?
General Marshall: I should think at the former place.
General Yu: What would be discussed today between General Chou, General Hsu and me?
General Marshall: Colonel Caughey, I thought that had been settled.
Colonel Caughey: Yes sir, we plan to discuss termination of hostilities and restoration of communications.
General Marshall: I want to do as much as possible. I hope we won’t take two hours on this. I want to clear things up as fast as I can. I have never talked with General Hsu in regard to this, so my purpose is instead of trying to settle it in writing, to get your views and discussion orally. On the first paragraph,59 there were no comments.
General Hsu: I have no comments on paragraph a at all, but we understood that General Chou would like to put in an additional clause, something like the other decision made by the Committee of Three.
General Marshall: That was in paragraph a. I was going on down the list. In paragraph a, General Chou wished to say “or later directed by the Committee of Three.” Any objections.
General Hsu: There are no changes on a at all.
General Marshall: Then is it accepted?
General Hsu: Yes. If General Chou insisted on adding an additional clause, we would not raise objection.
General Marshall: As a matter of fact, I thought it was a good one. Now paragraph b. Has General Hsu cleared b yet.
General Hsu: Yes.
General Marshall: Now paragraph c. It had been originally written 30 li,60 but General Chou proposed 15 li. If General Chou wanted it that way, it did not do any harm. I am making an effort this morning at the table and would like to know in advance if the Government is implacable on the 30 li.
General Hsu: We prefer 30 li.
General Marshall: I am trying to get what you prefer. If General Chou stood pat, was there any compromise? I want to know in [Page 1135] advance. Otherwise, we are stopped right here. I have heard General Chou En-lai’s arguments about this and I want to hear the Government’s side before we get together.
General Hsu: I thought 15 li was only 1½ hour by foot, so we thought the wider gap would give more security on cessation of hostilities.
General Marshall: We are aware that in a good many places, one could not move 15 li because then we got back into another situation worse. Another thing, I was the one who proposed the 30 li—it is not a Government proposal.
General Hsu: General Chou seems to be very keen on talking about cease-fire in Manchuria.
General Marshall: I am trying to find out if the Government was implacable on the 30 li.
General Hsu: I suggest normally 30 li but if circumstances were impractical, we may lessen the distance.
General Marshall: That was implied anyway.
General Yu: How about leaving it in and then General Chou could give his objections at the conference? I don’t think it is worth the argument.
General Marshall: That is the reason I am trying to get the change to 15. I do not think there is any harm and I know there are bigger fights later on. I propose that we should accept it. Further down, you get into bigger points and there is more room for argument. The next sentence was changed to make it clear. The sentence was reconstructed after my discussions with General Chou—reconstructed by me.
General Yu: I did not get the meaning of “special consideration will be given to local situation believed to have existed.”
General Marshall: The question is actually the situation at noon of June 7. Who was where? The question is that if some places had been attacked after noon of June 7 by an offensive which drove the troops out and then a counter attack carried the original troops back in, in that case there was no change. However, if the attack was after noon of June 7 and the troops were driven out, then they should be restored to that place because they were there at noon on June 7. If you try to establish the thing with scientific exactness, you won’t get it straightened out for months. I changed the sentence merely to make it a better English expression of the idea. There was no argument on either side as to necessity for the thing. It was a question of the phrasing. The change was my own. Was there any objection to that?
General Yu: I think the staff officers want to make it more clear—that is all.
[Page 1136]General Marshall: The change was made by me. General Chou could not understand it so I had changed it. This is better English.
General Hsu: We are agreed to this change.
General Marshall: We have now reached the real crux of the whole thing. In the event of disagreement among the teams or at the Advance Section of Executive Headquarters at Changchun, thereafter is a complete disagreement. Now, since that was written by me and since General Chou had offered an amendment and there have been additional possible concessions mentioned by General Chou En-lai, I will agree to a team captain having the decision where and when to go and who to see. I will agree that the American member of a field team shall have the authority to direct execution of the cease-fire order. I have now a more accurate translation here of General Chou’s statement regarding the execution of agreements. “After unanimous agreement has been reached and specific instructions or orders have been issued by the Committee of Three, the American member of field teams shall have the authority to execute those instructions or orders.” Now, that pertains to the cease-fire instructions only so far as we have gotten. The trouble with it is, that it leaves too much to interpretation as to what you mean by execute. I was endeavoring to have General Chou define that but just at that moment, I had to leave him to see the Generalissimo and I never have had it defined. I have not brought up these particular issues myself.
General Yu: I am afraid that it is rather difficult to settle or to get an agreement. In the first place, I agree that the scope of the power of the American member should be defined. It is too vague. In the second place, we want to revise the procedure of the vote. That is why we have written to General Chou and insisted on getting a formula.
General Marshall: I am not asking you to agree to this. I am telling you what General Chou has been talking about to see to what extent the modifications he made the other day are agreeable insofar as the paragraph we are debating is concerned. At first General Chou proposed that this should read “In the event of disagreement in the teams or at the Advance Section of the Executive Headquarters at Changchun, the senior American officer in Changchun will report the situation to Executive Headquarters at Peiping or to the Committee of Three at Nanking, depending on the urgency of the situation.” Since then General Chou has committed himself to the statement that “The American member of field teams shall have the authority to execute those instructions.” Therefore I assume that General Chou would be ready to modify his previous language in the document. I am sure that my original wording would not be accepted by General [Page 1137] Chou but General Chou may commit himself to some new wording of his own proposed amendment. Now the embarrassing phase of this particular matter in discussion this morning at the general meeting is this, and I ask that General Hsu keep it carefully in mind: in the first place, the new proposition of General Chou En-lai has been stated to me and not to the Committee of Three. In the next place, I will not be put in the position of mediator on this particular problem regarding the authority of the American officer. Now, in the third place, I think it is important not to draw into this particular discussion, a larger issue, such as the Committee of Three, that does not have to do with the immediate matter under discussion.
General Hsu: The Government would wait until it hears more fully the explanation from General Chou. However, at present, the Government agrees with General Marshall’s original stipulation.
General Marshall: I wish to point out that the original stipulation was not being carried out by the Government according to yesterday’s press release that stated a majority vote would rule. The original stipulation was that the American officer would have the controlling vote.
General Yu: It never comes about that both the Communists and Nationalists would side against the Americans. The Government was in accord with the original idea.
General Marshall: If General Chou defines “execute” as I assume it would have to be defined, then the American member of the team has the authority to do what we have to do at Changchun and we would not have to raise that issue. The issue would only have to come back to the headquarters as a protest, but the order would have presumably been executed. I would like to ask that, since General Yu and General Hsu are already present, if General Hsu would agree to holding the Committee of Three meeting here at the house immediately after the present meeting.
General Hsu: I agree.
General Yu: I propose that since the time is short, we concentrate on the cease-fire proposal and have another meeting later in the day or the following morning regarding restoration of lines of communication, preferably here at 0930.
General Marshall: I agree to this arrangement. Now, let’s continue the discussion of the paragraph regarding the American officers’ authority on field teams. My suggestion is that if General Chou proposes a modification here in line with the statements just read regarding the authority of the field team commander to execute agreements, that his amendment be accepted without getting involved at this time in the larger issues.
General Hsu: I have two fears: First, that General Chou is insisting [Page 1138] on the unanimous agreement in the Committee of Three to arrive at a directive to be sent to the advance teams for execution. That means if the agreement can be reached, then the field team can execute it, but if General Chou has an evasive attitude and tries to delay a unanimous agreement, it may not be reached and we are faced with the problem that nothing can be done. The second fear is that the Committee of Three cannot be assured that such detailed orders get to the field commanders covering every local situation. Every time an incident of a local nature is raised, they will still refer it to the Committee of Three, and then they will issue orders to be executed after decision is reached.
General Marshall: This is the agreement by the Committee of Three that we are trying to get on a basis of unanimous vote and it gives some rather detailed instructions, which in most cases should be sufficient to cover the position of the American officer. Therefore, arguments about a local situation would rarely, if ever, get back to Nanking. It would be too late. You cannot hope to get perfection. You can give whatever instructions you may wish and still have the man disregard them. We get agreements among the Commissioners at Peiping that are not carried out in the field or at the lower levels at Peiping. In other words, I think at this stage of our negotiations, it would not be wise to carry this issue clear up to the Committee of Three. I do not think this is the moment to do that.
I would like to raise a couple questions. We have left the final language of paragraph c to be determined. In paragraph d, General Hsu introduced the words “within garrison areas”.61 I see no objection to that. General Chou changed my expression “cleared by field teams” to “approved by field teams”. I have no objection to the change, in fact I consider it an improvement on my language. In paragraph e, I used the phrase “within 7 days” but General Chou wishes that changed to 15 days. Originally, I had planned on using a time limit of more than 7 days but Colonel Caughey had recommended using a low number in order that the final figure would be a reasonable one. Therefore, I am now in favor of the 15 days. Also, General Chou has introduced the phrase “of regiments and larger units” after the word “commander”. In the previous document we only spoke of brigades and higher. This time the document called for all names, from company commanders up. This would not be practicable. Therefore, I recommend that General Chou’s recommendation be accepted.
General Hsu: I agree to General Chou’s recommendations.
General Marshall: Regarding paragraph f, General Hsu wishes [Page 1139] that paragraph deleted in order that the stipulation to the agreement of 10 January will not prejudice movements into or within Manchuria. I believe the omission of this paragraph is unwise because the Nationalists now have in Manchuria enough men unless they are planning on going into an out and out war. And, incidentally, the Generalissimo accepted the proposal for Manchuria which involves an immediate Government reduction, not a reinforcement.
General Yu: I am in favor of the deletion because it was practically a duplication of the Army Reorganization Plan. The addition of this paragraph would impede the progress of this negotiation.
General Marshall: The omission of this paragraph would arouse in the Communists the suspicion that the Nationalists were planning to move troops into Manchuria for war. It would make it literally impossible for me to carry on with the negotiations. I believe that the fact that this paragraph is confined to Government troops may be changed and mention can also me made to include Communists.
General Hsu: I understand General Marshall’s attitude and line of thought and will take that into consideration when planning changes in the paragraph, or possible deletion.
General Hsu: I understand General Marshall would like to add an additional clause to that paper. I hope the new formula for the restoration of lines of communication, and the amendments to the reorganization and integration plan will be signed concurrently with this paper.
General Marshall: That need not be put into the paragraph, just don’t sign the paper.