761.00/239: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 14—10:47 p.m.]
11. 1. Litvinov who is still ill received me in his bedroom this afternoon. He told me that Chiang Kai-shek had stopped the negotiations with the Soviet Union for a pact of nonaggression because of fear of the Japanese. He asked if the President might be inclined to propose a pact on nonaggression between the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and China. I replied that I had no intimation that the President had any such intention. Litvinov said that he was [Page 75] less apprehensive of an immediate Japanese attack than he had been in December but that the Japanese Government might be overthrown and replaced by extreme Fascist government which might decide to attack the Soviet Union. He still regards the situation as extremely serious.
2. He asked me whether or not the United States intended to recognize “Manchukuo” and I replied that we had no such intention. He said that negotiations in regard to the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway between the Soviet Union and the government of “Manchukuo” had been resumed, that the Soviet Union had made a new offer which had been transmitted by the government of “Manchukuo” to the Government of Japan for approval, that he was awaiting a reply. He then said that the conclusion of the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway to the government of “Manchukuo” by the Government of the Soviet Union would ipso facto constitute de facto recognition of the government of “Manchukuo” by the Soviet Union and added that many nations especially Germany and Poland were most anxious to be the first to recognize “Manchukuo” de jure in the hope of obtaining special favors.
3. Litvinov said he did not believe that the recent draft of Polish agreement contained any written clauses directed against the Soviet Union but that there had been discussions of a joint attack by Germany and Poland on the Soviet Union in case the Soviet Union should be engaged in war with Japan. I asked him what had happened to the French proposal for a military alliance with the Soviet Union to be accompanied by the Soviet Union’s entrance into the League of Nations in regard to which he had spoken to me in December. He replied that there had been two French Governments since that time and that both had refrained from continuing the discussions of December.