893.50 Recovery/12–2448
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs (Sprouse)
Dr. Wang11a called this afternoon by appointment to make further inquiry regarding the delivery to China of military matériel being shipped on the USS Washburn, U. S. naval transport. Dr. Wang said that he was following up the inquiry made of me by Minister Tan on December 24 and asked if I had yet been able to obtain any information in this regard.
I told Dr. Wang that due to the holidays I had been unable to make exhaustive inquiries on this subject but that so far as I could learn, if there were any delay, it was due to technical reasons. When Dr. Wang pressed his inquiry and stated that he wanted to be sure there were no policy angles in this connection, I repeated that so far as I could discover there were no policy angles involved. In reply to my close questioning on this point, Dr. Wang said that the Department of the Army had indicated to the Chinese procurement group that there was a policy angle involved in the delivery of the military supplies on the USS Washburn. He also revealed that it was through the Department of the Army that the Chinese Embassy had learned that the USS Washburn was at Okinawa. He seemed reassured by my statement that I would communicate with him immediately upon obtaining any information in this regard from the Department of the Navy or the Department of the Army.
- Wang Shou-chin, Chinese Counselor of Embassy.↩