"not to arouse unfounded expectations." On April 23 Secretary Stettinius instructed Ambassador Hurley as follows:

well, that takes me down and tells me that we will continue to support Chiang Kai-shek, but to emphasize to Marshal Stalin the way that is—

However, at the same time I feel, as I have no doubt you do also, the necessity of facing the probability that Marshal Stalin's offer is given in direct relation to circumstances that are existing now and that may not long continue.

Now, what I am trying to say to you gentlemen is that no one questions-even when Edgar Snow wrote in the Saturday Evening Post that I waltzed into Stalin's office and that I knew him very well, and that in a breezy southwest manner I said, "Joe, what will you settle for in China?" Well, gentlemen, that is absurd. I had in my pocket by that time the Yalta secret agreement. I knew what Stalin had settled for in China. That is all absurd, and there are books and reams of it written, but this that Harriman is telling is true; but he said that the report I made to the President was factually correct, but that I was overly enthusiastic.

Well, gentlemen, when there was the Yalta secret agreement, and Roosevelt said, "Go ahead ameliorate it or set it aside, and return to the fundamental principles that you have been fighting for, because they are mine; return to the Atlantic Charter-I never intended to set it aside," now, when you are up against a signed secret agreement of two nations, great nations, if you are going to carry anything you had better be a little enthusiastic, and you had better fight pretty enthusiastically for what you are trying to do.

RESULTS OF HURLEY ATTEMPT TO AMELIORATE YALTA PROTOCOL

When I left Stalin, still mindful of what Roosevelt wanted me to do, I went to Chungking. There, of course, I met the press, as usual; and they said, "You saw President Roosevelt before his death?" "Yes." "You went to see Prime Minister Churchill in England?" "Yes." "We have seen that you visited Stalin in Moscow." "Yes." "Well, could you tell us, did these meetings have any effect on the American policy?" Well, I said, "Yes; in a way. America, Great Britain, and Russia have agreed that they will respect the territorial integrity and the political independence of China, and they will support the efforts of the Chinese people to establish self-government for themselves."

Now, that is very short. It got in the London papers-first, when I said this, as Senator Green knows when I was before his committee before they said, "Well, that is a nice story, but there isn't any record of it. It was all verbal."

Well, it would have been if the newspapers hadn't published that statement made by me; and the next day on the floor of Parliament in London, the opposition asked the Government-and I have here Ambassador Winant's report on it, but I won't put that in the record, but I will state what it was about-the opposition asked the Gov

ernment

if the statement issued by the American Ambassador in Chungking yesterday properly represents the present British policy in China.

And the answer by the Government said:

I presume you mean by that General Hurley's statement of yesterday?
Yes; that is the statement.

Does that represent our policy?

The answer was

That represents substantially the present policy.

Now, that was the reason I was enthusiastic; I thought that I had things moving, and I still believe that with Franklin Roosevelt's understanding the situation as he did, I might yet have blocked the results of the secret agreement at Yalta, and I admit that I was overenthusiastic. I admit that I stated my case in the most enthusiastic language at my command.

I was trying to do this, but the next thing I had was a cable from the State Department in which they say that they are irrevocably committed to the agreement signed at Yalta; in other words, I was making a little dent on Britain and Russia, but I could not move the American State Department; and that, my friends, I think, brings you to what I consider the saddest defeat that I suffered, and I believe that I was still carrying into effect or attempting to, the wishes of Franklin Roosevelt. That is what I meant when I said to you yesterday that when the Yalta secret betrayal of China was written, that Franklin Roosevelt was a sick man, and I have not believed that it was his work.

His conversations and instructions and directives to me, both before and after Yalta, indicate to me that that does not represent the objectives for which Franklin Roosevelt was fighting.

Now, does that answer your question?

Senator CAIN. My time has long since expired. I shall return to this subject. You have taught me much. I wish to know more, sir. I thank you very much.

Chairman RUSSELL. Gentlemen, we are supposed to have a joint session in the House to welcome the president of a distinguished neighboring American Republic at 12:30, I believe. In view of that fact, I think it might be well for us to recess now until 2:30 this afternoon Senator CAIN. Yes, sir.

(Whereupon, at 12:20 p. m. the committee recessed until 2: 30 the same afternoon.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Present: Senators Russell (chairman, Committee on Armed Services), Green, McMahon, Sparkman, Wiley, Smith (New Jersey), Hickenlooper, Lodge, Johnson (Texas), Bridges, Knowland, Cain, and Flanders.

Chairman RUSSELL. The committees will come to order.

Senator Green?

(No response.)

Chairman RUSSELL. Senator Hickenlooper.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. General Hurley, there was much discussion at the time of your resignation as Ambassador to China. Your criticism at that time was that you believed there existed unethical conduct on the part of certain attachés or members of the Foreign Service in China. I wonder if you could enlighten us in your own way as to that episode and as to what was going on, especially with reference to any soft policy toward the Chinese Communists that existed in the field, that is, in the State Department field, in China at that time.

I do not want to ask you just specific questions, but if you care to give us a narrative of that situation.

General HURLEY. Yes; I will be delighted to answer that, Senator. A little over 5 years ago I appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee, and I brought with me 12 documents, which I asked be decoded and paraphrased. I presented the list to Senator Connally, who was chairman, but they were not decoded and were not furnished to me, and I was told they were secret and that I could not use them. Now, before I begin on that phase, there is another prior to that and after the release of Stilwell, and after the death of President Roosevelt, that I think should chronologically come in there. But I am willing to go whichever way the Senator wishes me to.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. I wish you would proceed in your own way to recite that.

General HURLEY. Thank you, sir.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. And give the chronological steps as you see them. And I think we should have those documents if you have

them.

General HURLEY. This would make it chronological if I put this in before what you have asked me for.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. All right.

ROOSEVELT MESSAGE TO HURLEY ON INDOCHINA, 1944

I have here a message from President Roosevelt. Unfortunately, the date is not on it, but the number is 263767, in which the President said:

Inform Wedemeyer that United States policy with regard to French Indochina cannot be formulated until after consultation with the allies at a forthcoming combined staff conference.

Please keep me informed on activities of the British, French, and Dutch missions, southeastern Asia.

Well, of course that is about like sending a telegram to Washington and saying "Keep me informed on what is transpiring in Tucson, Ariz."

HURLEY REPLY TO ROOSEVELT MESSAGE

It took a little time for me to get it, but I replied to President Roosevelt under date of November 26, 1944:

Replying to your No. 20, November 16, the British, French, Dutch in Far East are bound together by a vital common interest, namely, repossession of their colonial empires and reestablishment therein of imperial governments.

This common interest is vital to them because without their empires Britain, France, and the Netherlands would be impoverished at home. This interest is binding because it is based on the desire of the British to extend to the Far East the same character of imperial hegemony as the three great imperialist nations have arranged for the control of Western Europe.

The three great empires must operate together as long as there is such strong opposition to imperialism. You may therefore expect Britain, France, and the Netherlands to disregard the Atlantic Charter and all of the promises made to other nations by which they obtained support in the earlier stages of the war. The most certain guaranty that the three imperial nations can have of attaining their imperialistic aims is through unified policy and action.

In the foregoing you have an outline of the reasons why the council of the three empires recently formed at Kandy has been built up without the consent or the approval of the United States.

Now to get back to President Roosevelt as to what his attitude was, he said in a speech on March 1 to Congress:

It cannot be a structure complete. It cannot be some people think a structure of complete perfection is at first, but it can be a peace and it will be a peace based on the sound principles of the Atlantic Charter, on the concept of the dignity of the human being, and on the guaranties of tolerance and freedom of religious worship.

Now, that to my mind, which came after Yalta, seemed to indicate that the President was still supporting the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The President, as I told you in the morning session, died after I had left London and before I arrived in Moscow. I have related my conference with Marshal Stalin.

HURLEY MESSAGE TO STATE DEPARTMENT ON SOUTHEAST ASIA, 1945 But on May 28, 1945-this is after the death of President Roosevelt-I sent this query:

After conferences with both British and Russian Ambassadors here, I am assured that for the time being they are directed to support the understanding we had with Churchill and Stalin which is (1) the unification of all the armed forces in China under the National Government, and (2) to endorse the aspirations of the Chinese people and to support their efforts to achieve a free united democratic government for China.

We have two major pressing controversies affecting the present situation and the future of democracy and imperialism in Asia. They are both still unsettled. Those controversies involve Hong Kong and Indochina. Events that have taken place recently indicate that you will soon be called upon to make important decisions pertaining to those two areas.

I have, therefore, thought it proper in compliance with the request made by President Roosevelt to supply you with such factual background as I possess which may be helpful to you in making your decisions.

[Deleted.]

By message dated November 17, 1944, President Roosevelt directed me to inform General Wedemeyer that no policy would be promulgated on Indochina until after the forthcoming combined staff conference.

The President also directed me to keep him informed as to the activities of the French, Dutch, British missions in southeast Asia.

The President had already discussed the Indochina situation with me personally. He was not pleased with the fact that the Vichy French of Indochina had collaborated with Japan. He was in favor of the establishment of a United Nations or international trusteeship under whose care and tutelage Indochina could secure independence according to the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

Neither General Wedemeyer nor myself has ever been given a definite written directive on the political policy regarding Indochina.

Indochina was originally placed and has remained in the Chinese military theater under the supreme command of Chiang Kai-shek. Wedemeyer, as chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek, has been constantly faced with the necessity of making military decisions pertaining to Indochina.

I will not attempt to outline the military situation or the operations of our Air Force in Indochina, as all of the facts pertaining thereto are available to you through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The fact to bear in mind is that Indochina is and has been since the beginning in the China theater of war under the supreme command of the generalissimo.

The French Ambassador and the military mission have become exacting in their demands for American support for the French activities in Indochina. The French demand American war supplies as a matter of right. A considerable number of refugees have come over from Indochina into China.

Wedemeyer has in all cases possible furnished these refugees food, shelter, medical supplies, hospitalization, and transportation, and has flown some of them to Kunming and some to India.

In my last conference with President Roosevelt I informed him fully on the Indochina situation. I told him that the French, British, and Dutch were cooperating to prevent the establishment of a United Nations trusteeship in Indochina. The imperialist leaders believed that such a trusteeship would be a bad precedent for the other imperialist areas in southeast Asia.

I told the President also that the British would attempt with the use of our lend-lease supplies, if possible our manpower, to occupy Indochina and to reestablish therein the French imperial control.

I suggested to the President that for my own guidance and in order to clarify Wedemeyer's position, I thought we should have a written directive. The President said that in the forthcoming San Francisco Conference there would be set up a United Nations trusteeship that would make effective the right of colonial people to choose the form of government under which they will live as soon as in the opinion of the United Nations they qualified for independence. Recently there emerged two points that have influence on the Indochina controversy. In the San Francisco Conference China seemed to have stood with Russia for the kind of United Nations international trusteeship for dependent people that President Roosevelt favored.

The American delegation at San Francisco seemed to support the theory of the imperial control of colonies and dependent nations by the separate or combined imperialistic nations, not by a United Nations trusteeship. These two points seem to indicate a change in the American policy.

There is always the possibility that by reason of lack of correct news from the conference, both ourselves and the public here may misunderstand the American policy. There is a growing opinion throughout Asia that American favors imperialism rather than democracy. This in my opinion is unjustified and should be corrected. I am certain America does not favor imperialism. If America is not opposed to imperialism in Asia, it is in conflict with the Roosevelt policy; it is in conflict with the Hull policy; it is in conflict with the principles of the Atlantic Charter; it is in conflict with the principles of the Iran Declaration; it is in conflict with the policies which all of the nations, including the imperialistic nations, gave support when they were asking the United States to join the fight for liberty and democracy.

It is in conflict with the policy on which the United States committed lendlease, all of the American resources for war, for democracy in Asia. It is in conflict with the policy that the United States invoked as our reason for the defeat and the destruction of the Japanese imperialism.

On May the 11th I sent a telegram to the Secretary of State indicating that it would be helpful to me in view of the increasing importance of Indochina as a factor in the dispute between imperialism and democracy if the Department would telegraph for my secret information the substance of the Yalta decision on policy in regard to Indochina that has changed the Roosevelt policy.

In that telegram I stated that I was familiar with the Roosevelt policy but I am seeking now to ascertain whether or not the Roosevelt policy has been changed. Under date of May the 18th the State Department replied: "No Yalta decision relating to Indochina known to Department. Military and political policy papers now under consideration will be transmitted for your secret information when approved."

This May 18 telegram from the State Department is not in the same words but to the same effect as President Roosevelt's telegram to me dated November the 17th, 1944, which said:

"The United States policy with regard to Indochina cannot be promulgated until after the consultations with the allies at the forthcoming combined staff conference."

In other words, I had been definitely directed verbally by President Roosevelt in regard to his policy in Indochina, but we in this theater have never received a written directive on the political policy of the United States in Indochina itself. It is in this situation we find ourselves when Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme British Commander in southeast Asia informed Wedemeyer by cable that he is flying British sorties into Indochina, which is not in his theater, without the consent of the theater commander, the Generalissimo, and without the consent or cooperation of General Wedemeyer.

This military phase of the situation is being submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Wedemeyer. Lord Mountbatten is using American lend-lease supplies and other military equipment to invade Indochina and to defeat what we believe is the American policy.