sylvester

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.

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 careful 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 tact, 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 them3elves 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, & 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 o Mutual Assistance, between those two war-minded Powers.