861.00/5377: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Morris) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:22 p.m.]
Your October 7, 1 p.m.80 I heartily concur in Harris’s conclusion81 that now is the time to give Kolchak every practicable support. [Page 440] My difficulty is in suggesting how this can be done effectively. The three things which he needs are troops to take the place of the Czechs, credits for supplies, economic and military, and inspectors to organize and supervise distribution.
As to the first it is clear that we cannot send additional troops.
As to the second I assumed that this question is involved in the larger problem of international credits, on which I understand McCormick and his colleagues are now working and which will require congressional action following the ratification of the peace treaty.
As to the third, I realize that it is difficult if not impossible to obtain competent American[s] to volunteer for inspection service in Siberia. In addition, our experience under the railway agreement has demonstrated not only how greatly Russians resent and oppose any system of foreign inspection but also how ill-prepared we are to undertake such a task among people of different language and different custom.
It has been suggested that it would be practicable to ask Japan to supply all the troops, Great Britain to supply the necessary inspectors and the United States to supply the credits. The essential difficulty of such a plan is that in the first place it presumes a spirit of cooperation from Japan which our recent experiences in eastern Siberia hardly justify. In the second place it would appear to me impractical to ask Congressional action for authority to extend credits whose distribution would be supervised by British inspectors. It is of course possible to grant Kolchak recognition of his government as a de facto Siberian Government (he could hardly ask it under present conditions) and then extend to his government a blanket credit to be allotted entirely under Russian supervision. This would be in effect a repetition by us of the experiment made by France and Great Britain last winter. I do not know how much Great Britain put into this experiment but I have been informed by French representatives that the cost to France, including the maintenance of the Czechs, was approximately 700,000,000 francs. I do know that British and French representatives were emphatic in their statement that the experiment had demonstrated to them the utter futility of trying to give assistance without adequate supervision.
These were the considerations which led me to submit the compromise plan suggested in my Sept. 23, 5 p.m.84 from Vladivostok and which recommended continued supervision of railway operation provided we could reach an understanding with Japan; an Allied committee for economic relief which would require some supervision of the port of Vladivostok; limited credits for military supplies to Kolchak; and vigorous prosecution of Red Cross work. To this [Page 441] might be added a de facto recognition of Kolchak’s government but I did not then suggest recognition and do not now because of my personal conviction that mere recognition without immediate and substantial assistance would not in itself give the Kolchak government the strength necessary better to control the general situation, but would on the contrary only add to the difficulties we are now facing in eastern Siberia.