Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “Meetings With the President”
Memorandum of Conversation With the President, by the Secretary of State
Deputy Secretary Anderson and I discussed with the President the prospective five-power military talks. I said that I was concerned lest the JCS viewpoint should be presented in a way which would have undesirable political repercussions. Their judgment had been that there was little use discussing any “defense” of the Southeast Asia area or any substantial committal of U.S. force to this area; that United States power should be directed against the source of the peril which was, at least in the first instance, China, and that in this connection atomic weapons should be used.
[Page 513]The British at least wanted to discuss the establishment of a defensive line, assuming the loss of all or part of Indochina.
I said that while I did not question Admiral Radford’s military judgment, I did not believe that it was serving our political objectives to present it at this time; that it would lead to U.S. isolation, and indeed it had already done so to some extent in connection with Admiral Radford’s last trip to Paris and London.1
If there was U.S. intervention as part of a coalition, no one could, of course, tell what the consequences might be or whether the initial theater would be enlarged. However, it was not politically good judgment to take it for granted that any defensive coalition would be bound to become involved in a general war with China, and perhaps with Russia, and that this would be an atomic war.
The President said he wholly agreed with me and that he was strongly opposed to any assumption that it was necessary to have a war with China. He said that the JCS should not act in any way which would interfere with the political purposes of the Government, and that he would try to find an occasion to make this clear. He also said that he might plan himself to talk with the military representatives of the other four nations so that they would get directly from him the political position of the United States.
- For documentation concerning Admiral Radford’s visit to Europe in April 1954, see vol. xiii, Part 1, pp. 1367 ff.↩