Nanking Embassy Files, Lot F–73—710 Sino–US
The Commercial Attaché in China (Calder) to the Chargé in China (Robertson)
Dear Walter: On the chance that you may have considered my ten page letter of December 27, 1945, an imposition, I hereby summarize the main points:
[Here follows summary in seven numbered paragraphs.]
I can now elaborate rather more convincingly on the paragraph beginning with the last line of page 6 of my letter of December 27, 1945, and the paragraph at top of page 7 thereof.14
One of our highly experienced men in one of our intelligence agencies here has succeeded in capturing a document which is a very recent Moscow directive to the Shanghai Soviet Consulate. It intimates that both the Soviets and the Chinese Communists will “lie low” for a period of about two years, disarming suspicion of ultimate aims, but that after we have been sucked in, in our scheme for giving China a streamlined modern industrial development to the tune of billions in loan and relief, draining our resources, then the Soviets will launch their active campaign to rob us of our gains and will use China as a base for sovietizing all Asia. In the two year period it is assumed that the United States will have further disarmed and will be off guard, and that the Soviets will have developed either an atom bomb or superior weapon with which they can strike quickly and decisively. It is calculated that we shall remain supine until attacked but, of course, the Soviets will not repeat the Japanese blunder of attacking us.
It is presumed that this Soviet directive has become known to a certain department of the Government in Washington and maybe to the President and to General Marshall, and it may account for the new Presidential directive in regard to our efforts in China, but it is possible that it has not become known to the Department of State. The Intelligence man mentioned has promised to show me a photostat of it and I shall give more data later. The discovery seems fully to uphold the surmises outlined in my letter of December 27.
[Here follows comment on operations of UNRRA in China.]
Sincerely yours,