Meeting on the Fifth Floor

In the sleety Washington rain, two black official limousines rolled down 21st Street, driving well beyond the main entrance of the Department of State to turn sharply down a side ramp into State's naked concrete loading basement. Burly Defense Secretary Louis Johnson stepped from his Cadillac into a private elevator, punched the button for the fifth floor. Across the basement General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dressed in civilian grey, got out of his car, strode briskly across the floor and got into a second private elevator.

Within the minute, both stepped into the soft-lighted office of the Secretary of State, appearing as though from behind sliding panels from the neatly disguised elevator recesses in his suite. Dean Acheson, who was waiting, waved his two visitors to a soft red leather davenport. At that moment, only his closest personal aide knew they were there. For an hour and 50 minutes, before they departed in the same clandestine fashion, the two chief architects of U.S. defense talked with the chief of diplomatic strategy. They were meeting together because, after months of inaction and hesitation, Harry Truman had ordered something done about Asia, and done quickly.

Each had something to report. Johnson disclosed the decision of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on Formosa (see below). Acheson, who had once sharply disagreed with Johnson's stand for more decisive action in Asia, discussed his own attempts to piece together a plan of action for Communist China's anti-Communist neighbors. There was reason for speed. London reported that the British government would shortly leave the U.S. conspicuous in its indecision, would recognize Red Peking within the week, probably followed in quick order by India, Canada,

Australia and the other Commonwealth nations.

Harry Truman had laid the issue squarely on the line at Thursday's Cabinet session. Fresh from a long chance to do his own thinking at Key West, Fla., he had demanded a clear-cut affirmative Asia policy on his desk before Congress reconvened Jan. 3, proposed that the Cabinet officers produce just such a policy at the meeting of the National Security Council this week. When Louis Johnson pleaded for a little more time, the President said nothing doing. Moreover, he added, he would preside at the meeting himself.

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