390.1115A/263: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Johnson)
206. Your 601, December 3, 2 p.m. The Department realizes that a real need may exist for some additional personnel in American organizations in west China, including organizations which are performing essential services on behalf of Chinese interests. It would seem, however, that there are a number of important considerations supporting the view that it would not be advisable for missionary organizations to undertake at this time a substantial personnel expansion in west China involving the transfer to that area of a large number of missionaries. Among the considerations in question are those involved in the Department’s action earlier in the year in suggesting that American citizens in west China withdraw therefrom in so far as practicable while transportation facilities through Indochina remained available, and the more recent suggestions that American citizens of certain categories withdraw from all of China and certain other areas of the Far East. It is to be noted in this connection that the route of travel through Indochina is no longer available, that the remaining routes of ingress to and egress from west China are difficult and hazardous, and that Japanese aerial activities continue.
The Department is asking the International Missionary Council in New York to bring this matter to the attention of the various interested mission organizations, and it is suggested that you may wish to discuss it along the above lines with representative American missionaries in Chungking.
Sent to Chungking. Repeated to Peiping and Shanghai.