141. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Komer) to President Johnson1
Goldberg’s Ideas on China. Last weekend I passed Arthur Goldberg your message that you were “fascinated” by his 8 April memo to you suggesting you write Mao proposing a Sino-US foreign ministers meeting or write all the Big Five proposing all meet together.2 I also told him you wanted him to come back on what more could be done in New York.
He is happy to do so, but feels we should reach a meeting of minds here before he talks with any of our friends in New York or probes the SYG’s views. I quite agree, since I’m not at all sure (nor is Walt Rostow) that Arthur has hit on the best idea. At any rate the time is not yet ripe.
Moreover, Arthur talked with Dean Rusk, whose reaction he described as “noncommittal.” If anything, Rusk preferred the 5-power approach (Tommy Thompson thought the Soviets wouldn’t want to be left out). Since Peiping wouldn’t buy anyway (and the whole virtue of the letter is to show our flexibility and its inflexibility), I see little reason to risk three negative replies (Mao, Brezhnev, De Gaulle) rather than only one. Goldberg too prefers a more cautious approach to Peiping alone first (he also points out that when the Warsaw talks began, Peiping itself proposed they be at foreign minister level—thus giving us a precedent to cite).
Goldberg also fears we’re in real trouble on the ChiRep issue this year. He sees the Japs and Canadians as ready to leave us. Nor will we gain African votes in his view. So “we’ll go down to defeat if we pursue our present posture.”
He urges that we switch to a “Two Chinas” policy, which will show that “LBJ is not a stick-in-the-mud”, and carries only limited risk because Peiping won’t buy anyway. The real problem, he admits, is Taiwan.
I urged that if he felt this strongly he should re-state his case to you and Rusk. I personally agree with him, and note that all the hints about new flexibility in our China policy have netted out a big plus so far.
In any case, Goldberg and I recommend that the next step be to set up a small high level action group to work out across the board recommendations to you. He suggests Ball, Komer, and himself. But I’m Vietnam so this is more Walt Rostow’s baby (suggest Ed Rice—a talented old China [Page 286] hand now back from Hong Kong—as chief legman). There’s nothing to lose if we can only keep the matter from leaking. But it will take your proposing such a group to get it off the ground.
I’ll discuss with Rusk
Rostow see me3
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Agency File, United Nations, Vol. 3. Secret. A handwritten notation on the memorandum indicates that the original was returned to Komer and a copy was sent to Rostow. The source text is the photocopy sent to Rostow.↩
- Not found.↩
- Both recommendations are checked on the source text.↩