893.00/3–1647: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Acting Secretary of State

844. Personal for Stuart from Marshall. Please cable following report to Moscow for my personal information: (a) summary of situation, political and military, including estimate of National Army state of supply, (b) recommendation for guidance of State Department as to action, if any, to be taken at this time.

I would like the foregoing to be primarily your personal estimate and views, to be followed by any important difference [of] views, including estimates on state of National Army so far as known from Generals Lucas19 and McConnell.20 Also, if conveniently and confidentially obtainable, I would like a summary of Durdin’s21 estimate and recommendation and also Art Steele’s,22 if he is in Nanking or China.

Label your reply for my personal attention.23

Department please pass to Nanking for action as Moscow’s 2.24 [Marshall.]

Smith
  1. Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, Chief of the U. S. Army Advisory Group.
  2. Brig. Gen. John P. McConnell, Director of the Air Division, Army Advisory Group.
  3. Tillman Durdin, New York Times correspondent in China.
  4. Arch T. Steele, New York Herald Tribune correspondent in China.
  5. In telegram No. 845, March 16, 7 p.m., Secretary of State Marshall reported from Moscow he had received Ambassador Stuart’s telegram No. 519, March 11, 4 p.m., p. 499, and considered it a partial answer to this request.
  6. Repeated to Nanking on March 16, 11 a.m.