The Misfire

In Hong Kong Vice Admiral Alfred Melville Pride, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and Rear Admiral Frederick Norman Kivette, commander of the fleet's Formosa patrol, were enjoying a routine leave last week for "rest and recuperation." With their wives, they were off on a pleasant round of shopping and social events. While the admirals shopped and sipped, the Chinese Communists were shooting their way to within hailing distance of the Seventh Fleet. Boldly, the Reds crushed all Nationalist Chinese opposition on Yikiang Islet, 250 miles northwest of Formosa, then poised for an attack on the Tachen Islands eight miles closer to Formosa (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Psychological Explosion. It was no fault of Admirals Pride and Kivette that they were holidaying while Asia was burning. Months ago, the U.S. had decided that it would not defend such outlying islands as Yikiang and the Tachens. This policy was publicly reaffirmed last week by Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles in similar statements to the press. Said the President: "No military authority that I know of has tried to rate these small islands that are now under attack, or indeed the Tachens themselves, as an essential part of the defense of Formosa and of the Pescadores, to the defense of which we are committed by the treaty that is now before the Senate for approval."

What the President and the Secretary of State said about the islands had been implicit in American policy. But when it was coupled with what they said last week on another phase of the same subject, the result was a psychological explosion heard around the world. The explosive question first came up at Secretary Dulles' news conference. A reporter wanted to know whether a cease-fire would be a "desirable thing in that situation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists in the Formosa Straits?"

Dulles answered: that is a possibility with many pros and cons. In general, the U.S. is sympathetic toward the solution of problems by peaceful means. So something of that sort would be generally in line with the broad policies of the U.S. and the United Nations. But working out such solutions is not simple. The U.S. would not want to take any action without the utmost consideration of Nationalist China's point of view.

Inevitably, the question was put to the President next day at his press conference. Did he think it would be useful to have a cease-fire arranged by the U.N.? The President's answer: "Well. I should like to see the United Nations attempt to exercise its good offices. I believe, because wherever there is any kind of fighting and open violence in the world . . . it is always sort of a powder keg. Whether the United Nations could do anything in this particular place, I don't know, because probably each side would insist that it was an internal affair."

Burning Interest. Despite the reservations, the statements by Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles were promptly, predictably interpreted around the world as a U.S. "suggestion" and even a "proposal" for a ceasefire. Did this attitude, plus the abandonment of the offshore islands, mean that the U.S. had changed its China policy? Was the U.S. accepting the British view that Formosa should be neutralized? Had it accepted the Communist regime as permanent and abandoned the persistent hope of free Chinese everywhere that a non-Communist government might some day return to power on the mainland?

High officials of the Eisenhower Administration took pains, in off-the-record conferences, to insist that the U.S. had not changed its policy. In fact, they said, Eisenhower and Dulles did not really expect a cease-fire to come about. (Said one high official: "Oh, it's always a poker game, but it is not going to happen.") They merely wanted to maintain the U.S. position, before the world, as a proponent of peace through the United Nations. This effort is especially directed at Europeans who profess to believe that the U.S. is spoiling for a fight with the Communists in Asia.

Before the week was out there were many indications that the U.S.'s calculated risk in the field of propaganda had misfired. In Asia, where the shooting is in progress, the burning interest is not in who is for peace, but in who is going to win. Thus, Asians were quick to realize that a cease-fire would leave the Chinese Nationalists with no hope for the future. Talk alone had done at least part of the damage that a cease-fire would do: it had demoralized U.S. allies in Asia.

This demoralization was obvious in the reaction on Formosa, where Eisenhower's statement had the effect of a major political event. Said a merchant who has been trying to get his family out of Shanghai for the past year: "It looks like the wisest thing for us is to go back instead of getting our families out." Said an editorial commentator in Sing Tao Jih Pao, an anti-Communist newspaper in Hong Kong: "After Free China has suffered this disaster [neutralization], what Asian nation will believe in the reliability of the U.S. as an ally?"

Places to Fight. Less than two years ago, the free world was holding out a three-pronged resistance against the Communists in Asia: in Korea, in Indo-China and around Formosa. Truces without victory removed the prongs in Korea and Indo-China. Now the Communists are hacking at the one prong that remains. Although Yikiang and the Tachens may not be very important as real estate, they are important in politics. Every Communist gain adds to their appearance of success and strength; in Asia, appearance can become success and strength. Asians were asking: If neither Korea nor Indo-China nor Yikiang nor the Tachens is the place to fight the Communists, is there such a place?

This week, the White House and leaders on Capitol Hill were moving to repair some of the damage done by the ceasefire talk. President Eisenhower sent to Congress a special message asking for a resolution to "clearly and publicly establish the authority of the President to use U.S. forces for the defense of Formosa and the Pescadores," and to show a wholehearted U.S. determination to that end. Commenting that this authority would cover "closely related localities," he singled out for special mention the island of Quemoy, only five miles off the Chinese mainland, which Chiang Kai-shek considers vital to the defense of Formosa. The message carefully avoided any reference to future use of the Chiang-held territory to liberate the mainland, and just as carefully said that the situation was too critical to await appropriate action by the United Nations.

While the political leaders thus hurried to regain the psychological ground the U.S. had lost in Asia, Admirals Pride and Kivette, their shore leave cut short, were back out to sea. What Washington still had to make clear was what the admirals were supposed to do next.

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