761.93/7–1245: Telegram
No. 577
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (
Harriman
) to the President
and the Secretary of State
priority
Personal and top secret for the President and the Secretary of State from Harriman.
Soong had another talk with Stalin tonight.1 He tells me that he has come to an understanding on all matters along the general lines previously reported except for some points as to the railroads and the ports. After long argument Stalin agreed that the guards should be Chinese and that there should be no rights to move Soviet troops in Manchuria. The forces going to Port Arthur would be moved by sea. The final point not agreed to regarding the railroads is control of the management. Stalin still insists on a majority of the directors which Soong has resisted. Soong has offered joint operation with equal participation in the board and the management.
As to the ports Stalin still insists that the military zone under Russian control should include Dairen as well as Port Arthur and that there should be a naval base within Dairen. Soong offers Port Arthur and the area south of Dairen as a military zone. Dairen however should be a free port under Chinese management with certain docks and storage yards leased on a commercial basis to the Soviets for their through shipments.
Soong suggested to Stalin that he return to Chungking to consult the Generalissimo over the points still at issue. Stalin however said that it was better to come to agreement before he met you at Berlin as he wished to decide with you date of his entry into the war. Another meeting has been arranged therefore for the night of the 12th. Soong intends to outline in detail the maximum concessions he is authorized to make along the above lines. If no agreement is reached he will return to Chungking to consult the Generalissimo and will give me to report to you the position of the negotiations—the matters on which agreement has been reached and the points remaining at issue.
Soong asks me to tell you that he feels that in order to meet Stalin’s demands he has gone beyond the Yalta Agreement in agreeing to recognize the independence of Outer Mongolia after the war and has fully met any reasonable interpretation of the Yalta Agreement in his proposals regarding the railroads and ports. On the other hand Stalin has offered him satisfactory conditions for the Treaty of [Page 863] Friendship and the Civil Affairs Agreement during the military period in Manchuria, also assurances that he would withhold support from the insurgents in Sinkiang and the Chinese Communist Party.
- i. e., July 11.↩