CO129-457 - Public Offices - 1919 — Page 672

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The Director of Military Intelligence presents his compliments to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and with reference to his letter No.139969/10/F. of 17th October, 1919, enclosing a despatch from the British Legation, Peking on the subject of the War Office List of Bolsheviks in the Far East, begs to state that this list was compiled at a time when Bolshevism was at its highest and it was considered necessary to circulate a list of suspected Bolsheviks to all Port Controls aa quickly as possible to prevent the admission of Bolsheviks into the United Kingdom.

The information contained in the list enclosed in Sir John Jordan's despatch, emanated from American sources, and at the time of its receipt in November, 1918, was considered to be out of date, but when the demand arose for a quick issue of a list of Bolsheviks it was combined with other information and at the same time a note was attached stating there ware certain to be errors and omissions.

Some months later instructions were issued for the cancellation of all Black Lists compiled for use during the War, and this list was included.

Major General Sir William Thwaites much regreta that the names of certain Chinese were included who had no Bolshevist leanings. This would not have occurred if the General Staff had been given more time to scrutin- ise the list before issue.

War Office,

Whitehall, S.#.1.

11th December, 1919.