123 Ward, Angus I.: Telegram
The Consul at Tientsin (Wellborn) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 10—3:49 p. m.]
1033. From Ward: Time too short for Department review summary Mukden experiences and I shall, therefore, follow instructions Deptel 451 to Tientsin, December 5, release factual account reporters Lakeland Victory tomorrow. Intend telegraph summary factual account from Lakeland Victory, if possible, otherwise Japan.
[Page 1045]Following brief analysis background Mukden experience submitted to enable Department appreciate many factors not apparent per se in factual narration Mukden experiences to be released press.
Sudden and complete collapse Nationalist resistance Mukden following Generalissimo assumption active military command (abruptly abandoning Li Kuang94 strategy conserve men and arms for prolonged retention Mukden Island) caught CCP95 unprepared administer Mukden. Mayor did not arrive until third day occupation, financial officials even later and there was no CCP currency until week after occupation. Suddenness Nationalist collapse surely caught CCP officials Mukden without policy directives and lack communications probably required local officials make snap decisions own initiative. Believe decision arrest Consul General of this nature.
Arrest and isolation Consul General was foreshadowed November 6 (although not so interpreted at time) when building adjacent Consulate General office staffed CCP equipment and personnel which bloomed into warden’s headquarters date Consul General arrest. During negotiations November 15–20 over seizure Consulate General radio, I insisted ultimately only upon necessity communicate Secretary State for instructions, but this Military Control Committee refused, even via commercial facilities. I suspended radio transmission prior deadline of November 18, offered seal equipment and place it under CCP guard on Consulate General premises, but arrest imposed nevertheless.
Incommunicado Consul General arrest never defended by CCP as punishment failure surrender radio. January 13, Military Control Committee returned me several commercial telegrams to Department, subsequent arrest, with letter stating my telegrams would not be transmitted [as?] “United States and Northeast People’s Government lack diplomatic relations”.
I am convinced radio controversy mere pretext Consul General arrest which CCP required alleviate its fears Consul General engaged espionage. Badgering interrogation Chinese staff after November 20 plainly revealed CCP assumption Consul General involved.… During interrogations following our police arrest October 24, prosecutor told Cicogna … and only means effectively isolate Consul General from undercover operatives was to arrest Consul General and cut off all outside contact.
CCP hostility Westerners Mukden not confined this Consul General, British Consul stated he for months required special CCP permission leave his premises and has been followed everywhere; also entirely unable enter Hong Kong bank premises which under guard [Page 1046] and occupied by CCP government personnel. November 1948, CCP arrested custodian Hong Kong bank on charge secret weapons and lie has since been held incommunicado unknown location.
During year arrest, have come to believe pro-Moscow elements CCP utilized Consul General arrest to drive wedge between United States and sympathetic elements CCP by aggravating conditions arrest to utmost. Chi Yu-heng incident (fabricated insofar Chinese not hit, kicked or otherwise injured) built by CCP into sensation in order drive wedge between American military and Chinese staff (thus blocking possible espionage through the matter our departure) and specially with spy ring trial to blacken us and justify our expulsion, rather than permit us depart pursuant United States protests and representations, which would have weakened their publicized independence “imperialist” influence.
Recent events corroborate my despatch 11 to Department May 1197 this subject to be air pouched from Japan.
Sent Department 1032. Department pass Peiping. [Ward.]
- Possibly General Wei Li-huang, Commanding General of Chinese forces in Manchuria in 1948.↩
- Chinese Communist Party.↩
- Not printed; it was received by the Department on December 20 and concerned possible Communist motives for confining the Consul General at Mukden. Mr. Ward concluded that the Communists might well have assumed that the American representatives in Mukden were a source of military information to the Chinese Government at Nanking and that strategic information could best be protected by isolating the Consulate General from its presumable agents. He wrote that a second consideration might be to give color to Communist propaganda charges portraying American diplomacy as an evil influence (125.633/5–1149).↩