Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, China, Volume II

146. Memorandum of Discussion at the 240th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, March 10, 1955¹

Washington, March 10, 1955

Present at the 240th meeting of the Council were the President of the United States, presiding; the Vice President of the United States; the Secretary of State; the Secretary of Defense; Brig. Gen. R.W. Porter, Jr., for the Director, Foreign Operations Administration; and the Director, Office of Defense Mobilization. Also present were Mr. H. Chapman Rose for the Secretary of the Treasury; the Director, Bureau of the Budget; the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (for Item 3); the Director, U.S. Information Agency; the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Acting Secretary of the Air Force (for Items 5 and 6); Assistant Secretary of State Holland (for Item 5); the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, and the Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps (for Items 5 and 6); the Director of Central Intelligence; the Assistant to the President; Robert Cutler, Joseph M. Dodge, and Nelson A. Rockefeller, Special Assistants to the President; the Deputy Assistant to the President; Dillon Anderson, NSC Consultant; Robert R. Bowie, Department of State; the White House Staff Secretary; the Executive Secretary, NSC; and the Deputy Executive Secretary, NSC.

There follows a summary of the discussion at the meeting and the main points taken.

[Here follows discussion of agenda items 1–5: “Coordination of Economic, Psychological and Political Warfare and Foreign Information Activities,” “Significant World Developments Affecting U.S. Security” (not including the Formosa situation, comments on which were postponed until agenda item 6), “Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy,” “U.S. Objectives and Courses of Action in Korea,” and “Report by the Vice President on Latin American Trip.”]

6. Report by the Secretary of State on the Formosan Situation

Before Secretary Dulles began to speak, Mr. Cutler invited Admiral Radford to make any comment he might wish to at this time regarding the military situation in the general area of Formosa. Admiral Radford confined himself to pointing out that the Chinese Nationalists were currently engaged in reinforcing the garrisons on the Matsu Islands.

Secretary Dulles then took the floor. He explained that he had pretty well covered the general aspects of his Far Eastern trip in his recent speech. He wanted, therefore, to confine himself on this occasion to the Formosa problem, which he had found to be critical and acute. Perhaps, he speculated, we should have taken this problem more seriously at an earlier time. It seemed to him at least an even chance that the United States would have to fight in this area before we were through. Secretary Dulles expressed the emphatic belief that the Chinese Communists were determined to capture Formosa. As to the related problem of Quemoy and the Matsus, it bristled with difficulties. No solution to the Formosa problem would be provided if the United States determined to give up Quemoy and the Matsus to Communist China. We would still thereafter face an unmitigated threat to Formosa itself. So the question of a fight for Formosa appeared to Secretary Dulles as a question of time rather than a question of fact. This, he said, did not necessarily mean general war, but the Chinese Communists would have to put our resolution to hold Formosa to the test before there was any chance that they would give up their determination to seize the island.

Recent reports, said Secretary Dulles, indicated to him very clearly that the real resolve and the ultimate objective of the Chinese Communists was the liquidation of the Chinese Nationalist Government if this lay within their power. Their ultimate objective vis-à-vis Formosa was to rid themselves of a rival power close at hand. Parenthetically, said Secretary Dulles, this was the same impression which U Nu, the Burmese Prime Minister, held respecting Chinese Communist objectives.

Secretary Dulles noted that the contents of a message which Chou En-lai had sent to Sir Anthony Eden² substantially restated the familiar position that Communist China took vis-à-vis the United States: It was the United States which was encouraging aggression, and the only solution which would bring peace to the area was the withdrawal of all U.S. forces.

After thus emphasizing the seriousness of the general situation, Secretary Dulles said he now wished to give special consideration to certain specific aspects of this general situation. The first concerned the timing of any U.S. intervention. He earnestly hoped that the United States might avoid any armed clash with the Communist Chinese until after the ratification of the London–Paris agreements.³ Accordingly, in so far as it was possible without sacrificing our vital objectives, we should temporize regarding Formosa until the ratification of the WEU pacts had actually been accomplished.

His second important point, said Secretary Dulles, was to emphasize the importance of making U.S. public opinion genuinely aware of the very grave prospect which the United States faced in the Formosa area. He did not believe that American opinion in general was aware of how critical the issues were.

Thirdly, Secretary Dulles called for urgent steps to create a better public climate for the use of atomic weapons by the United States if we found it necessary to intervene in the defense of the Formosa area. Conversations he had had with our military people in the area, continued Secretary Dulles, had pretty well convinced him that atomic weapons were the only effective weapons which the United States could use against a variety of mainland targets, particularly against Chinese Communist airfields which they would use to attack Formosa, against key railroad lines, and gun emplacements. Accordingly, Secretary Dulles thought that very shortly now the Administration would have to face up to the question whether its military program was or was not in fact designed to permit the use of atomic weapons. We might wake up one day and discover that we were inhibited in the use of these weapons by a negative public opinion. If this proved to be the fact, our entire military program would have to be drastically revised and we should have to develop duplicate programs involving conventional weapons on the one hand and nuclear weapons on the other. There was indeed very great concern on the part of our military people in the Formosa area with respect to this particular problem. It was of vital importance, therefore, that we urgently educate our own and world opinion as to the necessity for the tactical use of atomic weapons. At the President’s suggestion, continued Secretary Dulles, he had included reference to this point in his recent speech, but much more remained to be done if we were to be able to make use of tactical atomic weapons, perhaps within the next month or two. Public opinion in Asia was not at all attuned to such a possibility.

His next point, said Secretary Dulles, was to point to the necessity that this country pay much more careful attention to the problem of the loyalty of the Chinese Nationalist forces on Formosa itself. Secretary Dulles indicated his view that we had in the past been far too complacent about this matter. If even a small portion of a Chinese Communist military force succeeded in making a landing on Formosa and was thereafter met by the defection of one or more of the Chinese Nationalist armies, the situation could be very serious. Morale on the island was in general not too good and, of course, had lately been shaken by the withdrawal of the garrisons from the Tachens, etc. It was accordingly not inconceivable that with skillful bribery some of the Chinese Nationalist generals could be bought by the Communists. This had happened many times before in the history of China, and indeed one of the reasons for becoming a general in China was to get oneself bought. Chiang Kai-shek therefore faced a very difficult task to maintain or to restore morale.

In the latter connection, said Secretary Dulles, he had undertaken during his visit to paint for the Generalissimo a somewhat different picture, stressing the long-term future of Formosa rather than the prospect of any early return to the mainland; but such a drastic transition of attitude obviously presented difficult problems. The problems would certainly not be settled by any methods of shock treatment. Employment of shock treatment methods would risk the loss of Formosa, and if that island were lost the entire U.S. position in Asia would be lost with it.

All the foregoing, Secretary Dulles indicated, seemed to point up the fact that in some respects our U.S. intelligence material had not been too good. The personnel of our U.S. MAAG on Formosa were too few in number and too busy to give this problem adequate attention, and Admiral Carney was now concerning himself with it personally. Along with this emphasis on more adequate operational intelligence, the Administration must see to it that we do everything we possibly can to develop the capabilities of the Chinese Nationalist Government itself to protect Formosa and the offshore islands, at least until such time as the London–Paris pacts are ratified.

On the whole, Secretary Dulles reiterated, the situation was far more serious than he had believed it to be before he had taken his trip. He again repeated his conviction that the Chinese Communists will not call it quits on Formosa on any terms that the United States could accept. Sir Anthony Eden himself may be beginning to realize that the foregoing is the real position of Communist China. The Communist Chinese will never accept our position in Formosa until they have had demonstrated to their satisfaction that we cannot be dislodged from this position. Therefore, Communist probing will go on, and there will perhaps be no definite answer until the United States decides to “shoot off a gun” in the area. We may have to demonstrate our position by deeds rather than by words.

In accordance with the foregoing, Secretary Dulles repeated his injunction that we improve our intelligence material and that we give as much matèriel support to the Chinese Nationalists as possible in order to avoid the contingency of too early intervention by United States armed forces, and finally, to be ready if necessary to use atomic weapons.

Admiral Radford said that he merely wanted to say that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have consistently asserted that we should have to use atomic weapons. Indeed our whole military structure had been built around this assumption. He said that he was convinced that we could not handle the military situation in the Far East, particularly as regards aircraft, unless we could employ atomic weapons. We simply did not have the requisite number of air bases to permit effective air attack against Communist China, using conventional as opposed to atomic weapons.

Mr. Cutler inquired of Admiral Radford as to the probable timing—that is, the season of the year—most favorable for a Communist attempt to seize the offshore islands or Formosa itself. With regard to the offshore islands, Admiral Radford replied that the attempt could be made at almost any time. The most favorable season for an attempt against Formosa itself would be the interval between April and October.

Mr. Allen Dulles said that he desired to state to the Council that, apropos of Secretary Dulles’ observations regarding the shortcomings of our intelligence, nothing had been said in the course of the discussion which had come to him as a surprise. The CIA had long since been pointing out all these facts on the basis of intelligence available to it. However, Admiral Radford stated that there was insufficient U.S. personnel attached to General Chase’s mission on Formosa to evaluate accurately intelligence materials provided by the Chinese. As Secretary Dulles had said, General Chase has only a small MAAG, with insufficient personnel to handle adequately the operational intelligence which was available.

Referring to Secretary Dulles’ comments on the state of morale on Formosa, the President said that of course the United States alone could not save Formosa if its people did not want to be saved from Communism. What Secretary Dulles had had to report on the subject put things in a very different light than he had hitherto regarded them in. Secretary Dulles replied that of course morale on Formosa depended very largely on the United States itself. To this, the President said that at least he thought that Chiang’s army was loyal to him. Admiral Radford replied that this was not necessarily the case. The matter of morale was largely a factor of the reality of hopes to return to the mainland. Such hopes were necessary to sustain these 700,000 military men. The President responded with a statement that while this might be true, he could not see what the Quemoys and the Matsus had to do with the business. Admiral Radford answered that continuing to hold these offshore islands was of immense help to the morale of the Chinese Nationalist forces, for the very reason that in these islands the Nationalist forces came into actual contact with the enemy. This tended to provide some tangible hope of ultimate return to the mainland.

In a philosophical vein, Secretary Dulles observed that of course time changes things; but at this particular moment the United States could not sit idly by and watch the Chinese Nationalist forces on Quemoy and the Matsus sustain a terrific defeat or be wiped out, without such repercussions that we would be likely to lose Formosa itself as a result. Nor, on the other hand, could we force the Chinese Nationalists to agree to evacuate these offshore islands. In this was the dilemma and the danger of the current situation, which, however, could conceivably change in, say, a year’s time.

The discussion closed with an unanswered speculation by Admiral Radford as to whether or not the intelligence available to the United States Government provided any answer to the question whether the Chinese Communists were likely to make a major attempt to seize the offshore islands prior to the Afro-Asian Conference. Admittedly, continued Admiral Radford, they had the capability to seize the islands, though they would encounter very great difficulty in the effort to take the Quemoys.

The National Security Council:

Noted and discussed an oral report by the Secretary of State on his appraisal of the situation with respect to Formosa and the Nationalist-held offshore islands, based upon his recent trip to the Far East.⁴

S. Everett Gleason

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Top Secret. Drafted by Gleason on March 11.
2. See footnote 3, Document 143.
3. The agreements under reference, signed at Paris on October 23, 1954, but not yet ratified, provided for the establishment of the Western European Union and the accession of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. v, Part 2, pp. 1435 ff.
4. This paragraph constitutes NSC Action No. 1354. (Department of State, S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95)