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had been declared inelisTite by the Civil Service Comission, Admiral McCullough accordingly requested that the Camission ease of Mr. Hong. Mr. Moyer then sent the file the Investigatio Division so that an interview might be had with Mr. Owen Lattimore of the San Francisco office of the Office of W Late —-Hr, Lattimore was accordingly interviewed in San Francisco and on a la date Mr. Steely interviewed Admiral McCullough and Mr. Marsh of the Office of War Information regarding Mr. Hong, Mr. Owen Lattimore being \: also present during this interview. Mr. Steely reported anong other things that Mr, Lattimore stated that he wished to keep Mr. Hong on the job, that Mr. Lattimore had an efficient setup in the Chinese section in the New York office of the Office of War Information and wanted to keep it that way, that he had explicit confidence in Dr, Chi, that Mr. Hong is under careful supervision and even if he wore ae ; Na Communist he is not in a position where he can do any damage, that the selection of suitable Chinese was a delicate matter, and it is extremely difficult to obtain a campetent employee who does not have Lattimore also pointed out that Mr. Hong was recently used by the Arny to teach Chinese to 224 officers in India. Mr. Lattimore stated that be did not know Mr. Hong but he did kmow Dr. Chi and is relying upon Dr. Chi's recommendation and knowledge of Mr. Hong. connections which might constitute leaks in the organization, that i unter the present setup with Dr. Chi and Mr. Hong there have been no I incidents of confidential information getting into unauthorized channels k and that there had been no attempts on Mr. Hong's part to use his | present position for the spreading of Communist propaganda. Mr. { | During the interview in San Francisco Mr. Lattimae made an ax- tended statement regarding Mr. Hong and Dr. Chi and also firnishad —. the investigator with a copy of a letter which he had written to Mr. - Joseph Barnes under date of June 15, 1943. The statement of Mr. i Lattimore during the interview and the copy of his letter to Mr. Barnes are appropriately identified in the file. It would be a difficult | thing to attempt to simmarize Mr. Lattimore's lengthy atatenent or his >. letter to Mr. Barnes. However, the gist of his coments is that he r A does not mow Hong personally but based on his knowledge of the situa- - tion, neither the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance nor the China Daily | ews ary Camunietic. He then proceeded to give rather involved —_ P reasons for his conclusion. He said that he had know Dr. Chi, who r ia about 70 years of age, in China, that he was a respected and cultured man, and that his knowledge of Dr. Chi is such that he has implicit faith and confidence in his integrity and ability. He told Dr. Chi to select the person he wanted to assist him and Dr. Chi selected Mr. Hong. This was the first tine that Mr. Lattimore had sdge of Mr, Hong at all, nny Mowe Among other things Mr, Lattimore said: “Of course I have no concrete proof that Hong is not a Communist but in the absence of concrete proof T think