77. Editorial Note
A telegram of February 3, from Premier Chou En-lai to Secretary-General Hammarskjöld rejected the Security Council’s invitation conveyed in Hammarskjöld’s message of January 31. Chou’s message charged that the purpose of the New Zealand proposal was “to intervene in China’s internal affairs and to cover up the acts of aggression by the United States against China” and declared that the People’s Republic of China could agree to send a representative to take part in the Security Council’s discussions “only for the purpose of discussing the draft resolution of the Soviet Union, and only when the representative of the Chiang Kai-shek clique has been driven out from the Security Council and the representative of the People’s Republic of China is to attend in the name of China”. For text of the message, see U.N. document S/3358; it is also printed in Department of State Bulletin, February 14, 1955, pages 254–255.
James Hagerty’s diary entry for February 3 describes a conversation with the President concerning this. It states that Hagerty learned of the statement when he returned to the White House from New York at 3:30 that afternoon; the President had already been informed of it by Senator Knowland. After discussing a possible State Department press release with Acting Secretary Hoover, Hagerty took a copy of Chou’s statement to the President, who was in his studio painting. The diary continues as follows:
“When I came in, I told him that Chou En-lai had just rejected an invitation to come to the United Nations. I said that his statement had repeated the usual attacks on the United States for aggression and intervention in Chinese internal affairs, that we had occupied Formosa; and that the Chinese Reds demanded we withdraw our armed forces from Formosa and the Formosan Straits.”
Hagerty then read a portion of the statement to the President. The diary continues:
“I told the President that I had talked to Herbert Hoover and gave him the gist of the statement that Hoover would put out. He agreed with that and then said, ‘You know, they (the Chinese Communists) are certainly doing everything they can to try our patiences. It’s awfully difficult to remain calm under these situations. Sometimes I think that it would be best all around to go after them right now without letting them pick their time and the place of their own [Page 203] choosing. I have a feeling that the Chinese Communists are acting on their own on this and that it is considerably disturbing to the Russians. This Chou refusal must come as a great surprise to our British friends. You know, they were trying to get us in a position where they would solve the whole situation and stop the hostilities. Of course, they’re not too interested in Formosa, but Hongkong—that’s another story. They’d do almost anything to retain that.’”
The diary states that Hagerty then called Hoover and told him that the President had approved releasing a statement. (Eisenhower Library, Hagerty Papers) For text of a statement made to the press that day by Henry Suydam, Chief of the News Division, see Department of State Bulletin, February 14, 1955, page 254.