Voice of Britain

Sir Anthony Eden flew into Bangkok annoyed and disappointed with Secretary of State Dulles. Dulles' New York speech, carrying a U.S. pledge to defend the offshore islands if they were invaded as part of an assault on Formosa, seemed to flatly contradict Eden's hopes that Dulles was coming to agree that the islands should be given up. In Britain, while Eden was aloft on the way to Bangkok, the Labor Party was giving the government a rough time. "The danger of war in the Far East arises not from Chinese but from American aggression," cried Bevanite Harold Wilson. "Surely it is clear by now that peace will not be insured until Chiang Kai-shek and his chief lieutenants have been safely stowed away on St. Helena and the U.S. Seventh Fleet sent to guard him there." At week's end, the Labor Party unanimously approved a resolution demanding that the government tell the U.S. "it could not reckon on any military assistance from Britain in hostilities connected with the offshore islands."

Timely Account. The Tory government's embarrassment is compounded by the fact that its policy, though not its present tone, amounts to much the same thing. Anthony Eden has himself argued that the offshore islands rightfully belong to Red China. Last week, in response to Labor hectoring, Winston Churchill laid down a careful reply: "There is a great difference between the coastal islands of China and the island of Formosa. As there is no question of our being involved or indeed of our being needed in the defense of the coastal islands, we should be careful of what advice we should offer to our friends and allies upon it."

Then, as if to sober Socialists, who sometimes talk as if the Red Chinese are just aroused democratic workers on the British model, the government released an official account of the tortures inflicted on British prisoners in Korea by their Chinese captors, including such incidents as taking prisoners onto the frozen Yalu River and pouring water over their bare feet until they froze to the icy surface. The incidents were of a kind painfully familiar to Americans, but rarely mentioned by the British press or government, for fear the truth might be considered too inflammatory.

Dinner Debate. In Bangkok, Eden tackled Dulles over a late dinner. He urged that the U.S. announce, publicly and unilaterally, that it has no interests in Quemoy and Matsu. This would force a Nationalist evacuation, put the wide Formosa Strait between the contestants, effect a de facto ceasefire, and kill the military potential of the Formosa forces. Dulles indicated that if the Reds would talk reasonably, he might be willing to discuss the coastal islands, but that an attack on Formosa would mean war. With that Eden had to be content.

In their anxiety to give away other people's property for the sake of peace, neither Eden nor the British Laborites mentioned another offshore island--Hong Kong. With a shrewd instinct for exploiting U.S.-British differences and for gobbling up one goody at a time, the Chinese Communists have not mentioned it either, though the Chinese claim to Hong Kong is geographically and historically better than their claim to Formosa. Ironically, the firmest official British pronouncement on Hong Kong was made in 1949 by Clement Attlee's Labor Government. "Britain," said the spokesman defiantly, "intended to stand fast, and in view of the success of the Communists in China, would take all practical measures for the colony's defense."

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