893.50 Recovery/5–1349
The Acting Secretary of State to the ECA Administrator (Hoffman)
My Dear Mr. Hoffman: I am in receipt of your letter of May 13, 1949 to the Secretary in which you request that the Department advise you as to whether or not the areas of China in which ECA is now operating are under Chinese Communist domination.
None of the cities in which ECA is presently providing food, petroleum and cotton is now under Communist domination, nor is the island of Taiwan. As to the areas in which ECA has arranged for the distribution of fertilizer, the Chinese Communists now control much of the area immediately surrounding Shanghai, and their armies are reported to have advanced well into Chekiang and Fukien Provinces.
Of the areas in which the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction is supporting projects, the Chinese Communist armies are, as indicated above, now in Fukien and Chekiang. There is no information, however, that they have as yet entered Hunan, although they are reported in southern Hupeh adjacent to Hunan Province.
It is not possible to indicate, without more detailed specification of the location of Rural Reconstruction projects, whether the entry of Chinese Communist armies into a province means that the more limited areas in which the projects are actually being carried out are themselves dominated by the Chinese Communists. There is necessarily a considerable delay at times before such information is available in Washington.
Attached for your reference is a map of the military situation in south China as of May 12, 1949 produced by the Central Intelligence [Page 649] Agency. Arrows indicating recent Chinese Communist advances have been added with red crayon to bring the map into line with the latest information available from CIA.
I have instructed the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs to keep appropriate officers of the Economic Cooperation Administration informed of any changes in the political and military situation which result in control by the Chinese Communists of areas in which the ECA is extending assistance.24
Sincerely yours,
- On May 27 the Department informed the ECA “that the city of Shanghai is now controlled by the Chinese Communists”.↩