Editorial Note

Vice President Richard M. Nixon made the following diary note on the 192d Meeting of the National Security Council, April 6, 1954:

“The President was in a very serious mood in this meeting. Dulles presented his plan about trying to get united action among the allies. I said that such a plan was all right as far as it goes but that, if it were limited to resisting overt aggression alone, it would not meet the real future danger in Asia. I said that we must adopt the principle of uniting together to resist subversive aggression of the Indochina and Chinese Civil War type. I pointed out that we had never yet found a formula to resist this kind of aggression on a united basis.

“The President said, ‘What about Korea?’ I answered that Korea was a case of the Communists marching across a line even though it was technically in the same country and that, therefore, the united action principle applied because what was really involved was overt aggression.

“I also said that I didn’t think the President should underestimate his ability to get the Congress and the country to follow his leadership. I suggested that more technicians could be sent to Indochina if the President asked for them. He asked Wilson to check on this immediately.

“From the conversation, however, it was quite apparent that the President had backed down considerably from the strong position he [Page 1266] had taken on Indochina the latter part of the previous week. He seemed resigned to doing nothing at all unless we could get the allies and the country to go along with whatever was suggested and he did not seem inclined to put much pressure on to get them to come along.” (Memoirs of Richard Nixon, page 151)

For the memorandum of discussion at this meeting, see supra.