National Affairs: Cease-Fire

Shining through the week’s war of words about Quemoy was the sharp military fact that the fighting was going well for the Chinese Nationalists. U.S.-supported, U.S.-trained and U.S.-equipped, the Nationalists racked up dazzling jet victories, all but solved Quemoy’s tricky sea-air supply problem, and sent morale soaring, as Communist pilots and gunners showed unexpected ineptness and inexperience. During the week, the

U.S. added C-119 flying boxcars to the tremendous buildup on Formosa, and U.S. military men made the heartening prognosis that vulnerable Quemoy, seven miles from the Communist mainland, could be held, probably indefinitely.

This week, after 44 days of shelling the tiny islands with little or no military gain, Communism drew back a step or so. Nikita Khrushchev proclaimed softly that the U.S.S.R. would come to the aid of Red China only in the event of “an attack from without”—i.e., an attack by the U.S. Then Red China ordered a seven-day cease-fire in the Formosa Strait, and Red China’s Defense Minister Peng Teh-huai sent a special message to the Nationalists proposing peace talks between Chinese Communists and Chinese Nationalists. While holding out what may or may not be an olive branch, Peng also turned the sword in a new wound. “The Americans are bound to go,” he said to the Nationalists. “They have to go. The day will come when the Americans will abandon you.”