July 13, 1949
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. JESSUP
Suggestion for possible Substitution for the Last Sentence on Page 8 and the Material on Page 9 of the Letter to the President.
It was precisely here that two of the (penciled in at this point is "Chinese White Papers") fundamental principles of United States policy in regard to China came into conflict and one of them came also into conflict with the basic interest of the Allies in the war against Japan. The principles were non-interference in the internal affairs of China, on the one hand, and support of the unity and territorial integrity of China, on the other. It seemed highly probable, in 1943 and 1944, that unless all China could be unified it would collapse from internal paralysis, and Japan would automatically flow into the resulting political void, thereby depriving us of valuable bases, operating points and manpower. It should be remembered that the course of the war against Japan at this time was still very much in doubt.
In this situation and pressed by the paramount necessities of the most vigorous prosecution of the war In which China's interests were equally at stake with our own, action could not be compartmentalized in neat categories of policy. The overwhelming necessity for China, as well as her allies, was to restore so far as possible her unity and territorial integrity which the civil war, as well as the Japanese enemy, was destroying. The civil war had ceased to be a purely internal or Chinese affair.