National Affairs: Dulles to Formosa

FOREIGN RELATION

“I have made no secret of the fact that in the past the U.S. has been inclined to feel that the troops [on Quemoy and Matsu] were excessive for the needs of the situation,” said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in press conference last week. “But the Republic of China holds its views, and, after all, it is its territory that is primarily involved.” Tacking back to the rhumb-line course of policy in the teeth of the continuing foreign policy storm at home* and the uncertain cease-fire calm in the Formosa Strait, Dulles criticized the “exaggerated” importance the press had put on his comment fortnight before (TIME, Oct. 13) that the Chinese Nationalists were “foolish” to concentrate 100,000 fighting men on the offshore islands. As a military matter, the U.S. will advise some reduction of these forces, but U.S. diplomatic policy does not concern itself with this point.

Dulles was concerned, too, about the transparent Communist Chinese attempts to drive a wedge between the Nationalists and their U.S. ally. So was Chiang Kaishek, who called reporters into his austere Formosa office for one of his rare formal statements: “If we have to evacuate Quemoy and Matsu under pressure, not only the Chinese people but all people of Asia would lose confidence in America. Anti-Communists living on the mainland would also be disillusioned.”

Hours later Dulles announced a typically personal piece of diplomacy: after attending the Pope’s funeral in Rome and conferring with Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd in Britain, he would ride his converted Boeing KC-135 jet over the pole, be on Formosa for planning talks with Chiang by midweek. One area of likely discussion: if the Communist cease-fire becomes “dependable,” the Nationalists could thin out their forces on Quemoy and Matsu in exchange for a guarantee of increased—but nonatomic—U.S. firepower.

*The New York Times, which had applauded the President’s “momentous” speech last month drawing the line against appeasement at Quemoy and Matsu, last week advocated that the islands be turned over to Communist China.