194. Letter 8 from Johnson to McConaughy1
Thank you very much for your letter of September 12 which arrived here yesterday. We get most excellent pouch service on your letters to me and they are most timely and helpful. However, I am discouraged at the time it seems to take my letters to reach you. I fear that most of them are out of date and overtaken by events by the time they do arrive. I am going to see what I can do from this end, but fear that there isn’t much as we are up against complicated courier schedules.
Wang moved yesterday under item 2 much more decisively than might have been expected. It is quite clear that by offering only the two topics they hope to get out of this stage very quickly in order to pass on to the Foreign Ministers’ meeting. With the exception of “no force” the two items that we have to propose are of a very miniscule nature as far as the length of the negotiations here are concerned. Chou’s proposal for a Foreign Ministers’ meeting is their answer to our “no force” point, and they will probably reply to “no force” proposals by saying that this would be something for the “higher level” and attempt to avoid discussion. Of course we can counter by making something acceptable to us in the field of “no force” pre-condition for even discussion of a higher level meeting. This, of course, carries with it the difficulty of the more or less implied commitment to a higher level meeting if they come through with anything remotely responsive to our request.
Related to all this, of course, is what we really want and expect to get under “no force”. I would hope to be very clear on this before I would start. I find it entirely impossible in my own mind to think through to any logical demand on the Communists that would have effect of at least a promise of a cease fire in the Formosa area without relating it to what we could ask or obtain from the PRC in the same sphere.
[Facsimile Page 2]With the paucity of subjects suggested by the PRC as well as the paucity on our side, I wonder how much scope there is actually going to be for discussions on what we are going to discuss under item 2. We are faced with some real dilemmas. A flat refusal even to consider a meeting at a higher level as a subject for discussion under item 2 would, it seems to me, not be consistent with our tactics. On the other hand, the longer it is left alive without challenge, the greater the implication that we may agree to it. Eventually we have only two [Typeset Page 255] choices: to turn it down; or expressedly, or impliedly, agree to it under certain conditions. The question is what conditions we would establish. Of course the best tactic is to try to prevent it coming to a head any time in the near future, but to do this I will need substance with which to work. If we have a clearly defined goal under “no force”, we could, of course, probably work this vein for a considerable period, but our success in this would be considerably dependent on whether the Communists saw, or thought they saw, a pot of gold of the higher level meeting at the other end.
The only other vein I see that I could work is the embargo, and that is entirely dependent on decisions taken back there. It is my understanding that there was some discussion of this subject and, as I urged the Secretary before I left, I think it of the highest importance, if any shift in our position is going to take place, that the decision be most closely held and given to me to trade with here.
I forgot to mention in my last letter that Wang had invited the four of us to the gala opening of the Peking Opera here. He was very correct in calling to see whether I would be willing to accept the invitation, to which I replied that, although I would be glad to see the opera, I could not accept his invitation to the opening and invitational night where he and other officials would be present and there would be inevitable publicity. He immediately accepted my position and sent us tickets for the following night with the promise that there would be no publicity over my presence. We went and he faithfully kept his agreement. Incidentally it is an excellent show and magnificent propaganda in Europe for them just because there is no overt propaganda whatever in it.
I am returning the courtesy by sending him tickets for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra concert here next week.
I wanted you and a few others concerned to know that I was doing this and doing it every deliberately, with the thought this type [Facsimile Page 3] of thing will help me carry out our objectives in the difficult days ahead. I am going to have little or nothing in the way of substance to give them, but feel that by maintaining a reasonably easy personal relationship to which he has been responsive, I can do much to avoid or postpone a break when the going gets tough. I hope all of it will also keep them guessing a little without committing us to anything.
With reference my remarks on the telephone that Washington stories were saying we had finished item one, even USIA went way out on the limb on this. With our help the USIA man wrote a very careful story which some bright boy in Washington saw fit to rewrite. I recommend you take a look at the September 12 radio bulletin which carries a September 11 story under a Geneva date line which says almost all the wrong things and is far different from the story the USIA man filed [Typeset Page 256] from here. After all our struggle on the phrase the lead says Americans are going to be released “as soon as possible”. Then down in the story it makes the flat statement “the announcement completed the first item of business on their two point agenda”.
I can understand Wang’s confusion at yesterday’s meeting if, as is likely, they had read this in our own official output.
Sincerely,
American Ambassador
- Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal. Johnson signed the original “Alex.”↩