761.94/1154: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 11—10:26 a.m.]
2723. The French Ambassador to Moscow, Naggiar, said to me today that he expected to leave Paris for Moscow tonight.…
He added that he was returning to Moscow for the purpose of investigating reports which he was compelled to regard as true, to the effect that about a week ago the Soviet Government had proposed to the Japanese Government that the Soviet Union and Japan should settle their differences and should collaborate in the division of China.
I expressed skepticism but Naggiar insisted that the Russian proposals to Japan were most serious. He added that Russian influence in Sinkiang had now become so great that Sinkiang was controlled as completely by the Soviet Union as was Outer Mongolia. He believed personally that there was a possibility that the conversations now in progress between the Soviet Union and Japan might result in a complete partition of China between Japan and the Soviet Union similar to the partition of Poland.