225. Letter From the President to the Secretary of State1
Dear Foster: I have now read the cables that you brought to my office bearing on the conversations between Chiang, Robertson and Radford.2
[Page 523]Chiang’s answer to the specific proposal made is not only what I predicted but what I think I would have made had I been in his place. As long as our representatives did not feel they could suggest any attractive position between evacuation on the one hand and a “fight to the death” on the other, there was no possibility of a meeting of minds. For one thing there was left no way by which Chiang could possibly save face.
I had hoped that the Gimo himself might have seen the wisdom of trimming the garrison on the offshore islands down to the leanest fighting weight possible, organizing them highly, and in the meantime making the necessary public statements that would clearly set forth his determination to fight for the islands’ positions, but not to make them the sine qua non of the ChiNats’ existence. I had thought also that while he was doing this, if he could be assured of our reinforcing Formosa with air, some marines and logistics, that he would have been in better position both politically and militarily than he now is. Certainly this would have been better for us.
It is, of course, possible that no presentation could have brought Chiang to recognizing the wisdom of some arrangement as this—much less to propose it. But it is clear that as long as Radford and Robertson themselves could not grasp the concept, we simply were not going to get anywhere, and there is nothing in the cables to suggest that such a thought was discussed.
So, in a sense, we are still on the horns of the dilemma that you and I have discussed a number of times.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Correspondence with the President. Top Secret; Eyes Only; Personal and Private. The source text bears a handwritten notation by Phyllis Bernau that it was seen by the Secretary.↩
- See Documents 219 and 220.↩