893.00/9–1548
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State (Lovett)
| Participants: | Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo, Chinese Ambassador |
| The Acting Secretary—Mr. Lovett | |
| W. W. Butterworth, Director for Far Eastern Affairs |
The Chinese Ambassador called at his request. He avowedly wished to ascertain whether any final decision had been reached regarding the Chinese Government’s previous requests for a statement of policy and sympathy on the part of the U. S. Government and in the matter of sending a high military personage to China. I went over the ground with him referring to the communications which had taken place between the President and the Generalissimo, the action taken under instructions by our Ambassador in Nanking, the statement which the President made in a recent press conference,6 et al. This [Page 231] was well-tried ground and it was obvious that the Ambassador was not unfamiliar with it, so much so that it seems not unlikely that the real purpose of his inquiries was to ascertain what Mme. Chiang Kai-shek had been able to accomplish since he neither had accompanied her on her visits to the hospital to see the Secretary nor had he been present when she was received by the President and Mrs. Truman.
The Ambassador also referred to Mr. Bevin’s speech7 and particularly to that part of it in which Mr. Bevin had made reference to the Moscow Declaration8 in the matter of non-intervention in the internal affairs of China. From this and other questions which he asked relating to my press conference and to a report which he said he had seen in the public press to the effect that the USSR had protested to this Government against its shipments of arms to China, it was apparent that he sought to be reassured that the U. S., Great Britain and Russia were not in communication with a view to seeking a disposition satisfactory to themselves of the current situation in China. I reassured the Ambassador on this point and he immediately left thereafter seemingly satisfied.
- Apparently press conference of December 2. When asked if he intended to make a statement of policy on China, the President replied that he had on three different occasions made statements on Chinese policy and that he had nothing further to say on it.↩
- Speech by Ernest Bevin, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, December 9 in the House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates. 5th Series, vol. 459, p. 566.↩
- December 27, 1945. For text, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. ii, p. 815; or Department of State Bulletin, December 30, 1945, p. 1030.↩