Office of the Historian

711.93/11–2448

Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan)68

[Washington,] November 24, 1948.

The National Security Council Staff, having taken note of the former Policy Planning Staff paper,69 has been trying to draft a rather elaborate statement of American objectives and policy in China.

This effort is, I believe, largely a result of the wide-spread feeling, which Secretary Forrestal appears to hold, that we “have no policy” with relation to what is now happening in China and that something should be done about it.

As the State Department Consultant for the NSC, I have declined to accept the draft produced by the NSC Staff70 and have called for a meeting of the five Consultants to explain to them why I do not think it useful or advisable to try to produce such a policy document.

To support this position we have put down, in the form of a Staff paper,71 certain of our views on this subject which I propose to submit [Page 212] to the other Consultants, in advance of the meeting, in order that they may have a chance to consider our points of argument before the discussion.

Since I am not presenting this paper as an approved Department position, I am not asking for approval on it.

However, I thought it might be of interest to you and of possible usefulness in connection with questions that may be asked by the press in the coming period.

  1. Addressed to the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State (Lovett).↩
  2. No. PPS 39 of September 7, p. 146.↩
  3. See NSC draft of November 2, p. 185.↩
  4. No. PPS 39/1, supra.↩