893.50 Recovery/9–748
The Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth) to the Minister-Counselor of Embassy in China (Clark)
Dear Lewis: Your letter of September 7 was delayed in reaching me and in the meantime events have somewhat made my reply an obvious one.
By now you will have received the Department’s telegram stating that payment has been authorized from the $125 million grants for approximately $38 million for ordnance supplies for Fu Tso-yi and Shantung. This authorization was in response to a request received [Page 176] from the Chinese Military Procurement Mission in which it was stated specifically that the supplies were to be shipped direct to Tsingtao. It will interest you to know that, in contrast to some of the previous requests for payment under “other aid”, this request was made up of such immediately useful items as rifles, machine guns, mortars, howitzers, pistols and ammunition for these weapons and would appear more nearly to approximate what the doctor ordered.
Where all of these supplies are to come from has yet to be determined by the Army, which is handling the procurement, but it is expected that the first portion of this shipment will not arrive in China before December 1. As you know, shipment to Tsingtao will be handled by the Navy at no expense to the Chinese. The Department has pointed out to the Military Establishment, however, the advisability of considering means other than U. S. Naval vessels for transshipment from Tsingtao to Taku, although it was stated that there would be no objection to having American military observers accompany the shipment to insure its reaching Fu’s command.
We are now well aware of the propensity of Admiral Badger for whipping off telegrams indicating unreserved concurrence by the Ambassador, General Barr, et al, where such may not, in fact, be the case, and his messages are therefore accepted by the Department as representing principally the opinion of Admiral Badger until the Embassy and the AAG have been heard from. Your continuing efforts to keep an eye on Badger’s messages and to inform the Department where divergence of opinion exists will be very helpful in this regard.
As ever,