Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, China, Volume III

247. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, March 27, 1957, 11 a.m.¹

Washington, March 27, 1957, 11 a.m.

Travel of Newsmen to Communist China

PRESENT

• The Secretary
• The Under Secretary
• Mr. Phleger, L
• Mr. Robertson, FE
• Mr. Berding, P
• Mr. Sebald, FE (part time)
• Mr. Howe, S/S

The meeting was called by the Secretary to discuss the proposals on this subject set forth in his draft (draft No. 2, March 25, 1957²) which essentially set forth the idea of a procedure whereby “the Department would authorize the three wire services (AP, UP and INS) to send each one high-level correspondent to Communist China for a period not exceeding two months, and reports not to be filed until they came out.”

In the course of the discussion the Secretary read hastily Mr. Sebald’s memorandum to him of March 26³ reporting on his, Sebald’s, recent Congressional testimony on the subject. The Secretary called in Mr. Sebald to inquire whether the approval which Mr. Sebald reported as coming from the committee was a reflection of the statements that the Department was considering revision of the policy or was on the argumentation in support of the existing policy. Mr. Sebald said that it could not be clearly distinguished.

Discussion emerged around the following questions:

1. Would any revision of our decision on newsmen be a significant factor in our overall China policy? The Secretary thought very firmly that it would not.

2. Would the Chinese Communists accept the proposal if it were made? The Secretary thought and the others largely agreed that the Chinese might well not accept the offer but that this would be beneficial to us.

3. Was there any way in which we could limit the subsequent travel of newsmen or others to China once this first experiment had been completed? There seemed to be agreement that such limiting would be quite difficult and that further difficult problems would be raised.

4. Did an attempt by the Department to select which correspondents would be permitted to travel put the Department in a difficult legal position? The Secretary recognized that our strongest legal position would be on a complete denial to all, and that any selection no matter how made tended to make it appear that the Department was deciding arbitrarily who would get passports.

5. Would we be able much longer to uphold the present ban? Discussion was inconclusive especially as it related to whether we should seek to uphold it even though progressively less able.

The relationship of the Worthy case to the travel of journalists was briefly discussed, notably that, although in fact different problems, to the public were directly related.

In the end the Secretary indicated that he thought our best course would be to reply to Mr. Starzel along the lines that he, Mr. Starzel, had argued the case for journalists as against other travelers; he did not indicate how one could select from among the journalists; and to invite Starzel’s comments.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 911.6293/3–2857. Confidential. Prepared on March 28 by Howe.
2. Not found in Department of State files.
3. In this memorandum, Sebald reported on his testimony on March 20 before the consultative subcommittee for the Far East of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The subcommittee was chaired by Senator William Fulbright, who had expressed a particular interest in a discussion of the Department’s policy with respect to travel of newsmen to Communist China. Sebald noted that at the conclusion of his testimony, Senator Fulbright expressed the opinion that Sebald had made a “very good case” for the Department’s policy. Other members of the subcommittee seemed to agree, and the suggestion was made that representatives of the Department, including the Secretary, should testify on the subject at the open hearings which the full Foreign Relations Committee planned to have in April. (Department of State, FE Files: Lot 59 D 19, American Travel to China 1957)