166. Telegram From the Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Department of State1
602. Re American Fliers. For Key (IO) from Lodge. Immediately after SC meeting yesterday, Hammarskjold spoke to me about his letter to me (see mytel 599, Mar 23).2 I asked him how he interpreted this latest communication from Chou.
Hammarskjold reiterated his feeling, expressed in his letter, that the key to Chou’s present attitude was that he would inform SYG “immediately” as to the results of the investigations on the four jet pilots. This seemed to reinforce SYG’s belief that Chou would take action first on the four. SYG said that Chou’s language re US, while still derogatory, had become more civilized. Hammarskjold said he had acknowledged receipt of Chou’s latest communication and in it had referred to the fact that he has received letters from the families of the fliers, addressed to Chou, which he will shortly be forwarding together in a package. He included this reference to the letters in order to keep up what he called his psychological pressure on Chou. He did not want Chou to feel that if he takes action to release the four jet pilots that that would end matters.
Hammarskjold said he saw a new factor in this whole situation forthcoming at the Afro-Asian conference at Bandung. He feels Chou is clever enough to realize that he will be queried in private discussions there by friends of US and UN about his attitude on the prisoners. Hammarskjold thought that it was quite possible that U Nu or Nehru would raise this matter with Chou at Bandung. Hammarskjold has in fact been prodding Krishna Menon to get Nehru to exercise some responsibility on this matter and to prod Chou with regard to it.
Hammarskjold regards the Bandung Conference as an important step in the development of this matter. He feels that the receipt of the letters from the families about the first of April is well-timed, coming as it does just before Bandung. Chou should, in his opinion, be ready to act on the fliers by that time. If nothing has developed by the time the Afro-Asian Conference is finished, however, Hammarskjold [Page 395] feels that that would be the proper moment for reassessing the utility of his approach in this case.
This is the first time that Hammarskjold has indicated to me any possibility of a concrete deadline for the present phase of his activity on the fliers. Since that possible deadline is only about a month from now, I recommend that we cooperate with him to best of our ability in keeping public temperatures down on this subject for another month. I told Hammarskjold that I was not as confident as he appeared to be regarding Chou’s eagerness to move on the fliers matter.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.95A241/3–2455. Secret; Priority.↩
- Received at 7:58 p.m. Telegram 599 transmitted the text of a letter received on March 23 from Hammarskjöld, informing Lodge of a message he had received from Chou En-lai in reply to Hammarskjöld’s last message (summarized in Document 120). According to Hammarskjöld’s letter, Chou’s message stated that China’s handling of the case of the four flyers would not be influenced by clamor in the United States, that it was unfortunate that the families of the flyers had been prevented from coming to China, and that he would inform the Secretary-General immediately as soon as the case of the four flyers had been dealt with. (Department of State, Central Files, 611.95A241/3–2355)↩