Office of the Historian

S/P Files: 64 D 563

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, Prepared in the Department of State

top secret
[Washington,] February 3, 1951.
Participants: First Party and Second Party.
Telephone conversation, 3:30 p. m., February 3, 1951.

First Party inquired whether there was anything new to report. Second Party answered “no”.

First Party then expressed our misgivings about Third Party’s itinerary and plans for proceeding to London as seeming to be too involved and slow. First Party was turning over in his mind possibilities for a more direct and quick means of communication. He suggested for consideration the following possibilities:

1.
The venue to be Hong Kong.
2.
Third Party to designate a contact man there.
3.
We would designate a non-official intermediary—like Second Party—who is already there or would be sent there.
4.
Third Party informed by direct letter or letter of introduction to his contact man of the bona fides of our intermediary.
5.
Or, alternatively, our intermediary would proceed to Hong Kong and wait for someone to come to him and identify himself.
6.
Our intermediary might even be willing to proceed from Hong Kong on an over-night trip to talk face to face with one or more really authoritative persons.
7.
We would probably also be prepared to back stop our intermediary on the spot by sending someone like First Party to be in the offing and in direct touch with Washington. Whoever we sent would be there on some sort of normal official business.

The possibility was also advanced of Third Party proceeding to London by way of Hong Kong, stopping off there to expedite matters. Another suggestion was the possibility of our transmitting to Hong Kong through our own channels a message from Third Party which could then be put in the form of a letter and mailed from there.

First Party emphasized that the foregoing were all merely suggestions designed to speed up matters.

Second Party stated that he would discuss these possibilities with Third Party, but doubted that Third Party could designate a point of contact in Hong Kong. This was so because Third Party would not [Page 1561] know his opposite number in Hong Kong; Third Party’s lines of communication are vertical, not horizontal.…

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