893.00/9–2248: Telegram
The Consul at Peiping (Touchette) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 22—7:33 a. m.]
348. Reliable informers and observers in Peiping state that as General Yeh Chien-ying, Communist Chief of General Staff and onetime Red representative [at] tripartite Executive Headquarters Peiping during General Marshall’s Mediation Mission in China,24 is personally directing present violent assault on Tsinan, reason to believe there may be truth statements made and reported confirmed by captured Communist officers that Chinese Communists determined capture Tsinan to make city spot of projected political consultative conference of all anti-Kuomintang parties and subsequently capital of coalition government comprising dissident groups and Communists.
Sent Department 348, repeated Nanking 515.
- General of the Army George C. Marshall was Special Representative of President Truman in China, December 1945–January 1947: for correspondence on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1946, volumes ix and x .↩