861.00/4197: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
1431. For the President.5
“Reference Mission telegram 1421, April 1, proposed instructions to General Graves. The situation now is that General Graves has been instructed to use his troops as requested by Stevens,6 to guard the railway. The definite assumption by Inter-Allied agreement of the responsibility for a strip six miles wide, practically to Omsk, would require for effective military control a very large force, perhaps 500,000 men, and any such definite control would inevitably mean either very large additions to the Japanese forces or additions to our own. In any case, it would sanction a very large section under Japanese control, penetrating practically through Siberia. Conflicts between the soldiers and officers of the Inter-Allied forces and with various elements of the native population and forces are of daily occurrence. Would not the establishment of this long zone increase the frequency of such conflicts and so make possible local disturbances which would appear to justify assumption of civil control, and perhaps military repression, which in effect would mean occupation and administration of Siberia by Japan? Would it not be better to have State Department take up with Allied Nations represented in Siberia the formulation of a policy limiting the objectives of our military forces to the preservation of order about the railroad, its stations and trains as those in charge of the railroad may request, and also stating definitely as one of its objects the common desire to bring about the cessation of local violence by conflicting Russian forces merely as such actions affect the dispatch of trains or operation of the railroad? In seeking such an agreement, I think our State Department should be clear in its expression of disinclination on the part of the United States to add to its troops now in Siberia or to see additions made by other nations. This would limit military activity to the railroad and to existing forces, and give no implied sanction to great increases by any nation or extension of its political or military activities. Baker.”