220. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the President and the Secretary of State, Washington, April 25, 1955, 5:15 p.m.1
I brought to the President the four-part message from Walter Robertson.2 I told him that in essence the reaction of the Generalissimo was negative to the proposals that have been put up to him. The President said that he was sorry that Radford did not find any merit in the “outpost” theory and said that he himself had never expected that the Generalissimo would give up outright on Quemoy and the Matsus.
I referred to the statement made by Chou En-lai at Bandung and the State Department statement which had been issued on Saturday. I said I thought that we should be prepared to indicate receptivity to any “cease fire” proposal and that our Asian friends at Bandung who had brought about the apparently more pacific mood on the part of the Chinese Communists would expect this of us. The President agreed that I should take this line at my press conference on Tuesday.3
[Here follows discussion concerning the proposed Bricker Amendment to the Constitution.]