Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)48
This,49 as usual and as you well appreciate, is a very fine statement of the situation. I heartily agree with the final sentence (“It is now going to be necessary for the Chinese, themselves, to do the thing I endeavored to lead them into …”50), and I therefore have some misgivings about the suggestion that Ambassador Stuart is in “a position where his services in negotiations will almost automatically continue to be sought by all sides”. I am not at all sure but that, with the return of General Marshall, we should go out of the negotiation business and see if the Chinese can’t get together better without a “middleman”. I think it might be healthful all around for our relations with China to get back into a normal groove. By that I mean that our Ambassador concentrate his attention on furthering and strengthening our diplomatic and economic relations with China in a manner regardful of our own interests and of our desire to aid China in practical non-political ways, thus leaving it to the Chinese to reach some kind of settlement of their internal political difficulties. If General Marshall couldn’t turn the trick during the past year, I don’t think Stuart can do it in the coming year. And I believe that the Chinese, once they realize that we are ceasing our efforts to bring [Page 672] them together, may endeavor with more earnestness of purpose to get together themselves.