793B.00/6–350: Telegram
The Ambassador in India ( Henderson ) to the Secretary of State
799. 1. Menon, Foreign Secretary, handed Steere1 this morning message Tibetan Government communicated through Indian Political Officer Sikkim in reply to our request that we be permitted to send small party to Lhasa to render assistance to survivors MacKiernan party (Embtel 762, May 30).2 This message reads as follows (question marks denote garble in Indian message):
“The survivors are expected at Lhasa (?) within one week and Tibetan Government will take every care of them there and on journey to India which they are perhaps better able to do than persons without experience of Tibetan conditions. There have been many baseless allegations by Communists of foreign especially American designs on Tibet and as Tibetan Government are now arranging talks with Chinese Government they are particularly anxious to avoid possibility of further such allegations which proposed visit (?) would inevitably cause. Tibetan Government therefore ask that proposal to send US officials to Tibet may please be dropped”.
2. Menon stated that Richardson, Indian representative Lhasa had obtained information to effect that American survivor is Frank Bessac.
3. If Tibetan Government’s statements are accurate survivors will reach Lhasa within week. They may well depart for Indian frontier long before our party could reach Lhasa. Therefore our party would either meet them en route and never reach Lhasa or they would be held in Lhasa awaiting our party. For following reasons we are inclined believe we should not insist that our party enter Tibet:
- (a)
- In view uncertain political situation in Tibet survivors should reach Indian frontier at earliest moment possible and dispatch our party might delay rather than expedite their travel.
- (b)
- It is probable that Chinese Communists in case conversations that place with Tibetans will make issue of admission of American officials at this time and since there is little we can do for Tibet we should not insist upon Tibetans agreeing to steps being taken which might prejudice Tibet’s position with Chinese Communists.
4. If Department approves I plan send message immediately through Richardson to Tibetan Foreign Minister expressing appreciation [Page 359] for assurance that Tibetan Government will take every care of survivors and hope that it will do all possible, bearing physical conditions of survivors in mind, in expedite their travel to India. I intend also to ask that we be informed earliest possible time approximate date and point of arrival survivors at Tibetan border so I will be able to meet them.
5. I plan requesting Ministry External Affairs in its discretion ask Richardson get in immediate touch with survivors, render them all possible assistance and report to us their physical and mental condition and also to assure them of our anxiety with regard to their welfare.
6. We also plan to send party to Tibetan point of exit to meet survivors.
7. Department’s approval our suggested course action requested.3
- Lloyd V. Steere, Counselor of Embassy in New Delhi.↩
- Telegram 762 not printed. Douglas MacKiernan, Vice Consul at the American Consulate at Tihwa in Sinkiang Province, upon closing that post in September 1949 had proceeded with a small party including one other American—Frank Bessac, a Fulbright Scholar—overland toward India by way of Tibet. Shortly after entering Tibet, the party was stopped by a Tibetan border patrol which shot and killed Mr. MacKiernan on April 29, 1950. Mr. Bessac proceeded to Lhasa, arriving there on June 11. After a short stay, he went on to India arriving at the Indo-Tibetan frontier on August 21, 1950.↩
- The Department of State gave approval to the suggested course of action in telegram 554, June 3, to New Delhi, not printed (793B.00/6–350).↩