Policy Under Pressure

For Secretary of State Dulles, architect of the strong Far East policy that has kept Red China locked up inside its borders since 1955, it was a week of unrelenting and bitter pressures. On Monday, he conferred with President Eisenhower on Quemoy, found the President occupied and deeply disturbed by U.S. and Euro pean press criticism (see JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES). On Tuesday, only minutes before his press conference, Dulles sent down for a handful of State Department mail to be picked out at random, read many letters from the U.S. public that said something like "Don't let's have a war just on account of Quemoy and Matsu," but many, many more that simply pleaded "Let's not get into a war." The basic U.S. policy on Quemoy--hold the 'islands against Communist aggression in the Pacific, but negotiate if the Communists agree to a cease-fire--was obviously not understood by everybody.

U.S. allies in Europe, while hailing the principle of collective security, kept their backs coldly turned on the U.S. position in Asia. On Formosa, Nationalist China's President Chiang Kaishek, old U.S. ally, called his first press conference in three years, added to Dulles' troubles by proclaiming that I) the U.S.'s recent meetings with Red China diplomats in Warsaw to negotiate a cease-fire were "futile," and 2) the U.S., in any event, had "approved" his decision to move strong forces onto Quemoy and the other offshore islands. "Fear," said Chiang, "grows the farther you get from the front--all the way back to the U.S." In a speech to the National Guard Association of the U.S. at Atlantic City, N.J., Under Secretary of State Christian Herter, in a remarkable echo of ex-Secretary of State Dean Acheson, went out of his way to sneer at Nationalist China's devotion to the offshore islands as "almost pathological," then declined to release a transcript of what he had said.

Gales of Questions. At Dulles' crowded press conference the pressures blew up gales of hostile questioning. Dulles himself seemed as relaxed and casual as usual, but he had not gone far before he began to signal a new emphasis on conciliation that inevitably set off worldwide headlines (DULLES GETS FLEXIBLE--LONDON;

HINTS SHIFT IN U.S. POLICY! CHICAGO).

Specifically, Dulles:

P:Downgraded Nationalist China's decade-old hope of returning to the mainland, added that even if mainland Chinese staged a Hungary-type revolt against Communism, "it would probably be primarily under local auspices and local leadership ... It would be hypothetical and problematical as to whether or not it would involve the going back of Chiang as the head of the government." P:Implied that the U.S. was no longer holding out for a formal cease-fire agreement, would be willing to negotiate Chiang's forces out of Quemoy if the Communists would just stop shooting. P:Denied Chiang's statement that the U.S. had approved his Quemoy buildup, countered flatly that the U.S. "did not attempt to veto it"--but nonetheless had thought the move unwise (a military point seriously disputed by the Pentagon, which thought Chiang's buildup none too large to resist invasion).

Dulles went on to his most provocative statement: "If there were a cease-fire in the area which seemed to be reasonably dependable, I think it would be foolish to keep these large forces on these islands. We thought it was rather foolish to put them there, and, as I say, if there were a ceasefire, it would be our judgment, military judgment, even, that it would not be wise or prudent to keep them there." Was there, then, a possibility of important changes in U.S. policy if there was some "give" on the Communist side? Answered Dulles: "Yes, I would say so."

Waves of Doubt. When this word got to Formosa, Chiang Kai-shek seemed and sounded almost blankly uncomprehending. Said Chiang: "What Mr. Dulles is quoted as having said seems completely incompatible with our stand and does not sound like him. I cannot tell right away whether Mr. Dulles has made the remarks attributed to him for diplomatic reasons or with other purposes in mind." Chiang's Nationalist Chinese officials hurled bitter words at Americans--"betrayal," "doublecross."

U.S. Ambassador to Taipei Everett Drumright seemed equally nonplused. Drumright reported Formosa's mood to Washington in such terms that Dulles, promptly, reassuringly, sent word to Chiang that U.S. policy had not changed.

But none other than President Eisenhower, at his own press conference, repeated Dulles' key criticism of Chiang's Quemoy buildup. Said Ike: "I believe, as a soldier, that was not a good thing to do, to have all those troops there." Ike's strongest press-conference statement on

Quemoy: "The basic issue, as we see it, is to avoid retreat in the face of force."

Repairing Slippage. Despite the headline impact of the new emphasis, U.S. policy in the formal sense remained unchanged. The U.S. would continue to resist Communist expansion by force or threat of force at Quemoy. The U.S. would continue to seek to negotiate a dependable cease-fire with the Red Chinese at Warsaw. Given that, the U.S. might seek to persuade Chiang to withdraw sizable Nationalist contingents from Quemoy--but leaving Quemoy in Nationalist hands--as a means of removing what the President calls "a thorn in the side of peace."

At week's end the President, perhaps more aware of the slippage that misplaced words could wreak, let loose what amounted to a statement of U.S. principles on Quemoy. The President's vehicle: a letter to Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Theodore

Francis Green, 91, who had warned the President that he might not get national support if it came to war on Quemoy. Ike's points:

1) The U.S. would not fight just to defend Quemoy and Matsu but to stop Communism's heralded advance into the west Pacific--"I cannot dismiss these boastings as mere bluff."

2) The U.S. congressional resolution of 1955 empowered the President to use U.S. forces in the Formosa area if the President--not the Congress--decided that Formosa was threatened. "I welcome the opinions and counsel of others. But in the last analysis such opinions cannot legally replace my own."

3) U.S. allies, other than Nationalist China, had no commitment to help the U.S. in the Formosa area, but "I believe that most of them would be appalled if the U.S. were spinelessly to retreat before the threat of Sino-Soviet armed aggression."

4) The U.S. public, should it come to a showdown with Communism, "would unite as one," and moreover, if the opposite were believed by the Communists, "it would embolden our enemies and make almost inevitable the conflict.

"You, I think, know my deep dedication to peace," said the President to Chairman Green. "It is second only to my dedication to the safety of the U.S. and its honorable discharge of obligations to its allies and to world order."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.