Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270: Telegram
General Marshall to Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem, Jr.
83057. This message is reply to 27205, dated 2 April 1946, from Wedemeyer. Please pass following to Doctor T. V. Soong:
“General Wedemeyer has conveyed to me your views with respect to use of part of Eximbank loan for expenditures for labor and buildings in China and for the purchase of consumer items of raw materials. In my negotiations with US Government financial representatives, I had already stressed the points which you raised. There is a firm feeling at all financial levels in the United States Government that under the statute5 creating the Export–Import Bank, it should not extend credit for the purchase of consumers goods except in unusual circumstances such as were present in the cotton loan to China. Moreover, it is felt that so far as use of Eximbank funds is [Page 973] concerned, these should not be utilized for the payment of China domestic costs such as local labor and supplies. I feel certain that to insist upon the elasticities which you suggest would jeopardize the integrity of the entire loan and reopen proposals to charge against it Maritime Commission credits and credits for the purchase of surplus material, which as I advised the Generalissimo, I believe had been successfully though with difficulty repulsed. I anticipate that the Department of State and the Eximbank will open formal negotiations with respect to the loan with the Chinese Government’s representatives with [within] the next day or two.”
As I assume Wedemeyer has left China, a copy of this message will be shown to him here.
- Approved July 31, 1945; 59 Stat. (pt. 1) 526.↩