75. Editorial Note
At a meeting of the National Security Council on February 3, Director of
Central Intelligence Allen Dulles
and Admiral Radford briefed the
Council concerning aspects of the situation in the area of Taiwan and
the offshore islands. The relevant portion of Gleason’s memorandum of the discussion
reads as follows:
- “With respect to the Formosa situation, Mr. Dulles said that the
pattern of Chinese Communist conduct was now clarifying a
little, though he warned that revolutionary regimes like
China’s were ‘boisterous’ and hard to predict. They need
foreign devils, and at this point the United States is
playing the part of foreign devil. The emerging tendencies
were these: (1) Freeing Formosa has become the main
propaganda theme; the offshore islands are cast in a role
secondary to this. (2) Formosa is wholly an internal Chinese
matter, and one not susceptible of legitimate international
interference. (3) U.S. policy is deliberately leading to war
and accordingly there can be absolutely no accommodation to
it.
- “Mr. Dulles
predicted that the Chinese Communists were likely to
maintain international tension for some weeks to come,
without actually precipitating significant military action.
The general objective would be to occasion maximum pressure
on U.S. policy by the allies of the United States. On the
other hand, the intelligence community did not estimate that
the Chinese Communists were likely to deliberately attack
U.S. forces engaged in the evacuation of the Tachens.
- “The attitude of Moscow had been revealed to some degree
by Molotov’s talks
with the British Ambassador, Sir William Hayter. In a general way the
Soviets seemed to desire to exert a restraining influence on
the Chinese Communists.
- “Admiral Radford
indicated that the task force of the Seventh Fleet still
remained in an area approximately 100 miles north and east
of Formosa and 125 miles from the Tachens. The situation had
been more or less quiet for the last week.” (Eisenhower Library, Whitman
File, NSC Records)
