861.00/5460
Memorandum by the Third Assistant Secretary of State (Long) of conversation with the Russian Ambassador (Bakhmeteff)
The Russian Ambassador asked me if we would send additional troops into Siberia. I told him we would not, and that we would not send our troops farther west of where they are at present stationed. He said that he had heard from Omsk that Ambassador Morris had advised the Japanese not to proceed west of Baikal. I told him that this had been an independent decision by the Japanese, and that as far as I had been advised Mr. Morris had nothing to do with it. I also told him that the situations at Petrograd and Moscow might simplify the situation, and that the slow repatriation of the Czechs would help to the end that the railroad would not be so deserted of troops that it would be necessary to call Russian regiments from the front to guard the railroad.