Page:America in the Struggle for Czechoslovak Independence (1926).pdf/54

RV 50 as an interview given to Gordon Gordon-Smith.

On July 20, 1918, Dr. Masaryk filed with the State Department a request for aid for the Czechoslovak Army in Siberia. This memorandum is not accessible to the writer, but its nature appears from another document, delivered to the Department of State and undoubtedly read by Mr. Wilson, a mimeographed copy of which is in the writer’s possession. (The Situation in Russia and the Military Help of the Allies and the United States.) This last paper is undated, but since it refers to an Allied declaration of August 3, 1918, with regard to the aid to be given to the Czechoslovak army, it of course followed that declaration and preceded the formal recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council by America. Its importance lies in the fact that it throws some light on the Russian situation of the period, and its pertinence here is due to the consideration that it was undoubtedly weighed by Mr. Wilson when he deliberated upon the Russian problem an whether or not to send troops to Siberia in aid of the Czechoslovak legions. The following passages have been selected from this document:

The relation to the Bolsheviks I always imagined as a so to say working relation: I am speaking from