393.1163 Am 31/98: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Butrick) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 2—2:23 p.m.]
329. General Secretary Ballou of the American Board Mission here has received the following telegram from the Board’s China Secretary in Boston.
“Interpret developments to mean chances homeward travel next summer increasingly small, consider unwise further delay in following previous advice to those whom we deem should leave ultimately.”
Ballou called on me this morning and asked if I had any information which I could convey to him regarding possibility of hostilities in the Far East. I replied I had none but that personally I felt that the advice of the China Secretary was excellent and that the shipping situation is becoming increasingly acute and that Americans who are hesitating between remaining and leaving should leave as soon as possible. He stated that while Americans here had on four occasions in the past year received a suggestion from the Embassy that those who were not essential to their respective organizations should return to the United States no similar suggestion had been made to those deemed essential. He asked if we were now ready to make such suggestion to those persons and I replied that so far as I was aware there had been no change in the Department’s suggestions as previously conveyed to him.