File No. 861.00/1154
The Consul General at Moscow (Summers) to the Secretary of State
198. I transmit the following from Poole4 with my strong indorsement:
Referring to my No. 4 from Rostov, repeated in Summers’s 195, February 22, 6 p.m.5 I wish again earnestly to invite Department’s [Page 54] attention need for prompt energetic action by the Allies in Siberia. It is most necessary that the operation of the Siberian Railway be at once taken over by the United States and then police of the line kindred [handed] to the Chinese and Japanese. With the Germans now practically in control of European Russia, a line of defense must be established back of the Urals under cover of which a proper provisional government for Russia may be formed which will undertake with the aid of the Allies to turn back the German invasion. This is necessary (1) as a military measure [to] deprive Germany as soon as possible of the natural resources which are now falling into her hands and (2) with a view to carrying out the war aims which have been laid down by the President with respect to Russia. If a strict policy of non-interference in Russian internal political affairs is announced, then with the Siberian Railway operated by Americans and properly policed, representatives of the healthy political elements in Russia will promptly gather at Omsk and form a new provisional government to carry Russia through to a constitutional assembly. This government will form a rallying point for the large number of Russians who still desire to fight and who may be otherwise forced into the same [Soviet?] service.
This government will welcome direct military assistance from the Allies and the odium of an uninvited foreign intervention will thus be avoided. The movement on the Don miscarried (1) because its organization base was insecure and (2) because it had no proper rear-line communication. Under the circumstances stated above a provisional government in Siberia will be free of these weaknesses. At the same time it will have the political respectability of the Don movement commanding the adhesion of all the nationalist and patriotic elements in the population because, like the Don movement, it will be national and not sectional in character. The nationalist patriotic leaders are sincerely desirous of continuing the war against Germany in order that Russia may fulfil her engagements with the Allies and avoid the reestablishment of the autocracy in Russia under German protection. On the basis of my prolonged acquaintance with these men at front I can assure the Department that the occupation of the Siberian Railway by the United States, China and Japan jointly under proper assurances for the future would not be regarded as an aggression’but on the contrary as a friendly movement toward initial [united] action against the common danger and the reestablishment of order. Poole.