Office of the Historian

123 Ward, Angus I.

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth) to the Under Secretary of State (Webb)

[Washington,] November 4, 1949.

Reference is made to your memorandum of October 3146 respecting your conversation with the President regarding the evacuation of American citizens from Formosa and the position of Consul General Ward and his staff at Mukden. The former is being discussed in a separate memorandum.47 The following comments with respect to Ward’s position may be of interest to you and helpful in the event that you discuss the matter again with the President.

[Page 1003]

According to our latest information, Ward with two other American members of his staff and two aliens continues to be held incommunicado by the Chinese Communist police at Mukden.

Consul General Clubb at Peiping included the question of the continued detention of the staff of the Consulate General at Mukden in his letter of October 848 replying to Chou En-lai’s letter inviting recognition. Clubb is also endeavoring, so far without success, to discuss the case personally with high Communist officials. On November 349 he again wrote Chou En-lai, reviewing the Mukden situation and making strong representations on Ward’s behalf.

The Embassy at Moscow and Consul General Clubb have been asked to comment on the desirability of asking the USSR to exercise its good offices to ascertain the reasons for the long detention of the consular staff at Mukden and to facilitate its departure. Replies have not been received as yet. The possible use of an appeal to the United Nations is likewise being studied as a matter of urgency. It appears unlikely that an immediate remedy can be sought there.

On the basis of previous efforts to facilitate the departure of Ward and his staff from Mudken, there is no special reason for optimism with respect to the measures described above.

There seems to be no means by which a plane could be sent into Mukden, even with some utilization of force, for the purpose of rescuing our people there. They are closely confined and Mukden, of course, is well inland and firmly in the hands of the Communists.

We have, in our examination of the problem, given thought to the threat of force, or if necessary the use of force as a reprisal to effect the release of our staff. There are two outstanding dangers with respect to such measures: (1) reprisal might well beget reprisal of increasing gravity and in a widening circle with the end point outright hostilities; and (2) the immediate effect of the use of force might well be to increase the danger to the persons whom we wish to aid thereby and to increase the danger to other Americans within the reach of Communst power. For these reasons we have considered it desirable to continue our efforts along less drastic lines.

  1. Vol. ix, p. 1355.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. See telegram No. 1707, October 10, 3 p. m., from the Consul General at Peiping, vol. ix, p. 117.↩
  4. See telegram No. 1910, November 4, from the Consul General at Peiping, p. 1000.↩