Still Facing the Enemy

The reporters were ready for President Eisenhower at his first press conference in four weeks. Had his Administration changed its long-established policy of refusing to treat with the Chinese Reds unless the Chinese Nationalists were present? There has been no about-face, said the President. "The change is far more apparent than real."

Academic Cease-Fire. Ike reminded the reporters that Secretary of State Dulles had said "We would not discuss the affairs of the Chinese Nationalists behind their backs, but that if--as a test of good intent --if the Chicom/- wanted to talk merely about ceasefire, we would be glad to meet with them and talk with them, but there would be no conferring about the affairs of the Chinese Nationalists." Carefully selecting his words, the President explained why, in his view, a cease-fire discussion need not involve the Nationalists. "So far as I know, the Chinese Nationalists are not firing now except in defense of the territories they are now occupying. They are not attacking the mainland, so far as I know, except in retaliation. Consequently, I believe that a cease-fire on their side would be purely academic." So, a "ceasefire is purely on the Chicom's part. Therefore we can talk to . . . the Chicoms about their own firing without damaging the interests of the Chinese. Nationalists."

The President's careful explanation prompted Chinese Nationalist Joseph Chiang, Washington correspondent of the Chinese News Service, to ask a wry question: "Do you think Chinese Communists now realize America sincerely believes in peace so that she humbly came to America to help to seek peace?" Replied Ike: "Well, you are asking me to interpret people who are a long ways away and . . . with whom I am not too well acquainted. I would say this: I take their words with reservations, but with hope."

An Old Feeling. On the general subject of peace between East and West, the President had a hopeful hunch. "George Patton used to say that no man is a soldier unless he has a sixth sense," he recalled, "and then he would describe that sixth sense . . . For him it seemed to work. It was suddenly to make your decisions on your own guess and throw all of the G-2 people out the window. Now I confess I have a feeling that things are on the upswing. But I can take every single favorable point and balance it by something that doesn't look too favorable . . . But I do say, I still have my feelings."

One element in the President's cautious optimism may have been his recent contact with the enemy's high command. Ike confirmed the report that he had corresponded with Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet Defense Minister, whom he knew and liked in Germany after World War II. He said the letters were of no great significance, and were "based upon old friendship . . . absolutely personal."

A request for some presidential thoughts on the tenth anniversary of V-E day set Ike to musing. In May 1945, he reflected, he had thought that "it marked for me, you might say, the end of an active career." Yet ten years later, the end was still not in sight. Added the President, wistfully: "I wish that in this cold war we could now get some victory that would make us feel as good as we felt that day of May 1945."

/- A currently popular Pentagon abbreviation for "Chinese Communists." Its opposite number, in Pentagonese: "Chinats," which the President never used.

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