Friday, 5 November

At 11.00 a.m. I returned a visit to the American Ambassador Harriman. He inquired about what happened with regard to the transportation proposal and he also asked General. S.T. Spaulding to join the discussion. I told Harriman the whole thing in detail. He said General Spaulding had briefly talked to the Soviet Vice Minister of Foreign Trade. He was going to request that Minister Mikoyan start the transportation earlier, but asked me to pretend that I knew nothing about it in order not to arouse Soviet suspicion. I agreed with him.

At 4.45 the Swedish Minister, Assarson, visited me, telling me about the friendship of the United States towards Sweden. As for the Finland problem he was quite pessimistic. He said that Finnish people were sympathetic with the United States and that Finland had unrealistic expectations and therefore didn’t compromise with the Soviet Union. It even envisioned that whatever the outcome the United States would be its backing. This was actually a blunder as not for any reason would the United States sever its relations with the Soviet Union because of Finland. Minister Assarson also said that Free France was very unhappy with the Conference as it expected other countries would treat it as a strong country, which was unrealistic. He told me that the happiest thing for him was that Secretary of State Hull remarked to him that the Chinese Ambassador was one of the nicest men in Moscow.

In the evening I invited Vice Military Attaché Xu Huansheng and his wife and the Vice military Attaché Li Xiuye and his wife for a farewell. We dined until 11.p.m.