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The Office of the Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George,
Thames House, Millbank,
London, S.W1.
3rd September, 1935.
My
dear Orde,
Major
and Mrs Jones, Gareth Jones’ father and mother, called to see me here
yesterday in order to inquire whether I would endeavour on their behalf to
clear up a number of outstanding points concerning the tragic death of their
son, Gareth. In accordance with the arrangements which have already been
made with your Office and with the full approval of Mr. and Mrs Jones1
the body of Gareth Jones is to be cremated and the remains’ are to be
brought to England. Could you kindly inform me:
(a) How these will be conveyed to this country.
(b) What date they are likely to arrive.
(c) What arrangements you propose for handing them over to the
parents
It is
understood that Gareth Jones was made a temporary member of the Peking Club
at Peking. Will you kindly inform me what arrangements are being made with
regard to any property, clothing etc., which he left there. In this
connection what has happened to his books and memoranda and especially his
notebooks and diaries because it is known that he made copious notes and
these may be of the greatest value certainly to his parents. Also he had a
very good camera. What has happened to the photographs that he had taken?
Photographs which have since appeared in the newspapers and which have come
into the hands of his parents are recognised as those taken by their son’s
camera.
One
thing that is rather worrying to Mr. and Mrs. Jones is the Information which
the
Foreign Office gave to me some time ago that Gareth Jones went on this trip
against the advice of the British authorities. His parents have sent to me a
copy of a letter which they received from him from which the following is an
extract:-.
“Then
suddenly as I am drinking tea near the swimming pool of the Club, where I am
a temporary member, Baron von Plessen comes up and says “Would you like to
join Dr. Muller and me in an excursion into Inner Mongolia to visit Prince
Teh Wong at the meeting of the Princes. There will be a car at
our disposal”. So I jumped at the offer. I shall be away about a week.
Absolutely safe country. No Bandits.”
It is
clear from this that Gareth Jones went as the guest of Baron von Plessen,
who is a member of the German Embassy In Peking. If, therefore, he was a
guest of Baron von Plessen, does not some responsibility rest on him? And
what happened to Baron von Plessen? Gareth Jones in his letter indicates
that be was to accompany him. What happened to him? Did he go on the trip?
Further what happened to Dr. Muller? Dr. Muller is reported to have been
given 10 days In which to find the ransom, but I never heard of Dr. Muller
even trying to return to give a helping hand to his friend Gareth Jones,
still less to do anything effective regarding the ransoms. Certainly nobody
on this side has heard anything from Dr. Muller and in common decency one
would have thought that the least he could have done was to have
communicated with Gareth Jones’ parents.
Mr.
and Mrs. Jones feel that the whole affair is very unsatisfactory.
Is it the intention of the
Foreign Office to have any inquiry made into the whole matter? If it has not
been their intention up to the moment, then Mr. Lloyd George would be
obliged if you would cause a full Inquiry to be made and for a full report
to be furnished to him In order that it can be definitely established just
how the who] tragedy happened and precisely what advice was given to Gareth
Jones and by whom,
Yours
sincerely,
A.J.Sylvester
C.W.
Orde, Esq., C.M.G., The Foreign Office, Whitehall, S.W.1.
******
The Office of the Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George,
Thames House, Millbank,
London, S.W1.
6th September, l935
My
dear Orde,
Your
Ref. F.5694J19/1o.
With
further reference to my letter of September 3rd which you kindly
acknowledged on September 5th, a suggestion has been made to me which I feel
bound to pass on to you and to ask you to be good enough to look into.
It is
alleged that suspicions have been aroused in the Far East that Germany and
Japan have been trying to effect a military arrangement and were most
anxious that this information should not leak out.
Now
Gareth Jones had travelled extensively in Germany, in Japan and, indeed, in
most countries; he had been present at the meetings of the Princes in Inner Mongolia and he was on
his way back to China with Dr. Mueller.
Gareth Jones is known to have kept a very careul diary and it might
easily have been possible that he knew much more than his German colleagues
or colleague would like him to know, and it would not have been a very
difficult thing to have arranged for the bandits to have intercepted them.
Why was it, for instance, that Dr Mueller was taken to a certain house to
consult with the Brigands and that Gareth Jones was brought in only some
considerable time afterwards? Why, as stated in my previous letter, was it
that Dr. Mueller does not seem to have gone back to his friend Gareth Jones
as it was understood that he was to have done, because he was allowed to go
on parole for 10 days? Why also was it that the body is alleged to have been
found 200 miles away from the place where it was supposed to have been? It
is reported that Dr. Mueller is the man who identified the body.
It
may be that the whole of these suspicions are groundless, but in a case of
this kind I think you will agree with me that we ought to know,
Meantime, it has been suggested that Dr. Mueller may be something much more
than a Journalist and that he may, in Fact, be a secret agent. It is
understood from reports which have appeared in the Press that he is In
Berlin. Would you be so kind as to communicate with our Ambassador In Berlin
and ask him to make private inquiries of Dr. Mueller? An insight into his
character end into his activities may give a further clue to the unravelling
of this story and get us nearer the truth.
I want
to emphasise the point which I made in my previous letter that Dr. Mueller,
the so-called friend and colleague of Gareth Jones on this great mission,
has, at any rate up to the moment, not even endeavoured to communicate a
line to the parents - not even to express his condolence.
A
suggestion has been made that it any significance attaches to the foregoing,
a British Lawyer might be asked to interview Dr. Mueller for the purpose of
examining him.
Yours
sincerely,
A.J.Sylvester
C.W.
Orde, Esq., C.M.G.,
Foreign Office, Whitehall, S.W.l.
********
I had
passed on to you the suspicion that is in the minds of some or his (Gareth
Jones’) friends that he may nave been the victim of a plot to get him out of
the way because of some knowledge he may have happened on that neither the
Japanese nor the Germans would want to have published. She [ Miss Hooker]
told me - what I had not heard before - that the Chauffeur of the car in
which he and Dr. M. were driving was Russian. If he was a White Russian that
would fit in well with this theory. If on the other hand he was a Communist
it might be that he had an interest in getting hold of G.J’s papers from a
different point of view. Or he may have had nothing to do with the affair.
But what happened to him? and the car? I have seen no mention of
that. In any case it seems to me that every effort should be made, in the
interests of the F.O. no less than of G.J’s parents, to recover his papers,
find out by cross-questioning Dr. M. just what happened to their belongings
when they were captured, whether he (Dr. M.) brought all his own papers
safely away, how G.I’s telegram to his parents was despatched (I have
not seen any explanation of this in any of the press accounts); how it was
that the brigands who are supposed to have captured them were themselves
captured some 200 miles away from the place where G.J.’s body was
round; whether any medical evidence was taken as to how long he had been
dead. It, I remember rightly it was an Englishman named Miller attached to
the British Legation (& not Dr. Muller) who identified the body?
There
is much need for further information on a number of points. As I suggested
to you in our talk I should think it would be quite worth while for the F.O.
to arrange for a trained lawyer skilled at cross-questioning - or a
detective? - to see Dr. M., ostensibly on behalf of G.J’s relatives,
and see what light he can obtain on the whole affair. He should of course know
German well - though apparently Dr. M. is at home in the English language.
Someone with expert diplomatic knowledge speaking at a private meeting at
which I was present some months ago said that if the archives at the
Japanese and German War Office became accessible to the public they would
probably reveal a very close and friendly understanding, if not actually a
Treaty of Mutual Assistance, between those two war-minded Powers.
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