CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Williams:
7th December, 194.3
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Many thanks for your help and co-operation with all this repatriation business; the enclosed reports are going off to London and more or less explain themselves. am arranging for each of them who write reports to send them, as you suggested, to
our office with a brief identifying note.
I
The matter I mentioned to you over the telephone was this; one of the Canadian exchange people was Morris Cohen whom the press here (with more truth than they knew) called "an almost legendary figure". General "Two-gun" Cohen was, as I suppose you know, Sun Yat Sen's bodyguard for many years; he enjoys a courtesy military title from the Chinese and (I believe) a small pension. I have known him pretty well for a number of years; he is an amiable old fake.
his story is that
He approached me here in liontreal two days ago for "advice"; he refused evacuation with Madame Sun Yat Sen at the start of the Hong Kong battle because he was engaged in secret work for the British Government. The implication
is that we are now responsible for his maintenance in this country. He displayed odds and ends of knowledge about our "cloak and dagger" boys in the Far East to show that he was on the inside. Someone may in a loose moment have asked him to do some- thing for us in China if they did I know nothing of it, and am certain in any case that it wasn't a very serious proposition.
His approach to me may possibly have been an attempt to draw me out and to aud to the skeleton of unimportant knowledge he already had; if so it was easily dealt with.
I advised him that if he thought he had a claim on us he should write officially to your office and set it out in detail; it could then be checked in London.
And this note is merely to let you know beforchand in case he does approach you by letter or in person.
Aelioù
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