FOREIGN RELATIONS: Negotiation in Warsaw

Both Warsaw negotiators were old hands at the game in which they found themselves. Tall U.S. Ambassador Jacob D. Beam, 50. characterized by some of his colleagues as “the stubbornest man in the Foreign Service.” had, in his time, negotiated with Nazis, Russians. Yugoslavs and Indonesians. Affable. Berlin-educated Wang Ping-nan was a veteran of the 1954 Geneva conference that ended the Indo-Chinese war and of 73 subsequent bargaining sessions in Geneva with U.S. Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson.

Like the old pros they were, both men opened aggressively. Beam demanded an immediate cease-fire in the Quemoy area and renunciation by Peking of the use of force in the Formosa Strait. Wang countered with a demand for immediate withdrawal of Chinese Nationalist troops garrisoning the Quemoy and Matsu Islands and an end to U.S. military support of Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek.

Kibitzers’ Drumfire. As Wang and Beam made their moves—stopping after each one to consult their superiors in Peking and Washington—kibitzers round the world kept up a drumfire of advice, exhortation and complaint (see cartoon). Keenly aware that the only bargaining counter which the U.S. had to offer was a change in the status of the offshore islands, Chinese Nationalist leaders regarded the Warsaw talks with undisguised alarm and despondency. In Taipei Nationalist Premier Chen Cheng implicitly warned the U.S. that his country would not be a party to any such bargain. Said Chen: “We will defend Quemoy, Matsu and all the other islands in our hands to the very last.”

If the Warsaw talks failed, the U.S. was prepared to go to the U.N., hopeful that a majority of U.N. members could be lined up behind a resolution condemning force in realizing territorial ambitions. (As Dulles was unhappily aware, the chances that he could win an explicit U.N. endorsement of the U.S. backing of Nationalist claims to Quemoy and Matsu were slim indeed.) As for the Chinese Communists, there were indications that they. too. would not mind seeing the crisis discussed in the U.N.. where they could assert their claim to big-power status.

Vital Difference. Fact was that Red China clearly believed that the more protracted the discussions the better. ”If necessary,” said Peking Radio last week. “we will talk for five or even ten years.” Like some U.S. officials, the commissars of Peking saw Quemoy as ”another Dienbienphu”—a position which could be squeezed off with grievous loss of Western prestige and military manpower, but which the West could not rescue without using disproportionate force. But the Communists would be making a grievous mistake if they did not also recognize the difference between Dienbienphu and Quemoy: at Dienbienphu U.S. prestige was not directly at stake; at Quemoy it is. This is the vital difference.