#5-390
To Appolon Alexandrovich Petrov1
March 9, 1946 Chungking, China
My dear Mr. Ambassador:
General Wedemeyer, and Admiral Cooke (Commander of American Navy
in Far East) inform me that the evacuation and repatriation to Japan of Japanese
military and civilian personnel from China is now proceeding so rapidly (about ten
thousand individuals a day) that shipping now involved in this procedure will be
gradually liberated commencing April 15th next.
I would appreciate your ascertaining for me the view of your government
regarding the evacuation of Japanese military and civilian personnel in
Manchuria. If personnel of this character can be made available at Manchurian
ports commencing April 15th, the excess shipping referred to above can be
devoted to the repatriation of these people in steadily increasing numbers as the
evacuation from China approaches completion.
Your early advice will be appreciated as the orders for the shipping
concerned must be issued well in advance, either for its demobilization or for the
repatriation referred to.2
Faithfully yours,
Document Copy Text Source: Records of the Department of State (RG 59), Lot Files, Marshall
Mission, Political Affairs, Manchuria, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park,
Maryland.
Document Format: Typed letter.
1. The Soviet ambassador to China, Petrov was suspicious of Marshall’s role and
successes. His reports to Stalin were increasingly negative, asserting that Marshall’s
real objectives were to secure a U.S. foothold in Manchuria and to buy time in order to
build up Nationalist forces. Not only had Marshall played “the ugly role of Chiang Kaishek’s herald,” Petrov reported, but he had allied himself with “reactionary Republicans
and Democrats [in the U.S.], with strong support of the Army and Navy.” (Quoted in
Westad, “Could the Chinese Civil War Have Been Avoided?” in Bland, ed., Marshall’s
Mediation Mission, p. 512.)
2. On April 27, Marshall reminded Petrov that he had yet to receive a reply to his letter.
According to the Chinese army, he said, there were about eight hundred thousand
Japanese in the area between Darien and Mukden, and the U.S. wanted to send a
repatriation team to Dairen “to coordinate movements of the Japanese.” On May 14,
Marshall wrote to Walter Bedell Smith, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, to have
him prod the Soviet Foreign Ministry. “I doubt if you can help but it might be that you
could dispel any idea of a deep diplomatic plot in my action and get them to treat it as it
is: as purely business to utilize shipping without delays. As to Japanese military
prisoners, they could merely remain silent as to that.” (Foreign Relations, 1946, 10:
892–93.)
Petrov responded on July 4 that Soviet military authorities proposed to deliver the
Japanese to U.S. ships at Darien and other Manchurian ports; the details of the
operation were to be worked out with MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo. By the end
of 1946, over one million Japanese had been repatriated from Manchuria: 17,361
military personnel and 993,476 civilians. (Ibid., pp. 906, 910.)
Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland and Sharon
Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic
version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 5, “The Finest Soldier,” January 1,
1945–January 7, 1947 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp.
497–498.