256. Letter 16 from McConaughy to Johnson1
Your letter No. 9 of September 22 came on the 26th, in the midst of our efforts to get out the instructions for your September 28 meeting. The drafting and clearance of the instructions was a complicated [Typeset Page 338] business with the Secretary first in Ottawa, then in New York; and with Herman Phleger also in New York part of the time.
The “renunciation of force” statement started with an excellent Phleger framework which was fleshed out by the Secretary. This morning we are telegraphing you some minor revisions in the first and last paragraphs. The intent of these changes, as you will immediately see, is to get away from any remote implication of a non-aggression pact or indeed any sort of bilateral agreement with the Chinese Communists. Anything which smacks of a pact or executive agreement with the Chinese Communists is of course out of the question. We are thinking in terms of separate unilateral public declarations and not pledges or assurances to each other.
We feel reasonably confident that you are on a good wicket now and that there will be plenty to talk about. It is hard to see how Wang can reject this item out of hand. My guess is that he may try to maneuver in the direction of something resembling the famous “Five Principles”; or try to make a false distinction between “international” and “internal” resort to force in the Taiwan area.
We have had a difficult time with Defense on the confused problem of the unaccounted for military personnel. So far as have not been able to get what we consider a consistent statement of principle or position out of them. In one document they will make sweeping claims and assert that the claims can be supported; in another they will indicate they do not have much basis for any very positive allegations. They blow first hot and then cold. We still do not understand what criteria they have applied in determining what names should go on the list. They seem to have conclusive evidence that some of the people on the list are dead. In some cases the bodies presumably have been recovered. In other cases, the personnel [Facsimile Page 2] apparently were never in the custody of the Communist side, having been lost over the high seas. On the other hand, it seems that some of the names which were on the original list of 970 should not have been dropped. A case came to our attention this week where an officer was last seen alive in a prison camp by fellow American officers. His name was dropped from the list merely because he was in bad shape from injuries and gangrene and the Americans thought be could not have lasted much longer. This was a lay opinion, not a medical opinion. Defense did not stop with a presumptive finding of death, in this case, but made a definitive finding of death. It is incomprehensible to us and gives us misgivings about the whole subject. But the casualty determinations are not within our province and there is not much we can appropriately do about it. It is a dilemma. We are trying to arrange a meeting today with Deputy Defense Secretary Robertson, General Erskine and Bill Godel to get Defense clearance of a draft presentation for you to make to Wang on this subject. It represents a considerable departure from the text contained in our 790, which was basically a Defense document, modified slightly but unsatisfactorily by [Typeset Page 339] us. The new draft follows more the approach recommended in your 797 but is somewhat firmer in tone. We have to bear in mind U.S. considerations of course, Congressional as well as Pentagon, & could not go quite as far in the direction of mildness as you suggested.
You handled Wang at the 18th meeting on September 28 with consummate skill. Satisfaction at the adroitness with which you met every situation is expressed on every side. No one is unmindful of the fact it takes two to keep a discussion going and that Wang has it within his power to bring the talks to a close at any time. But we now assume that this is not likely to happen in the immediate future. Peiping would be in a highly vulnerable position if it broke while our renunciation of force statement is up for consideration.
You will not be surprised to learn that the President’s illness has given the continuation of these talks added importance in the eyes of the Secretary.
Various prominent newspaper and publishing people are putting redoubled pressure on the Department to give them passports for travel to Communist China. The influence mustered by some of these people makes their demands difficult to resist. No one is thinking in terms of dropping the barriers of course. But it has occurred to the Secretary that it might be useful to intimate publicly that in view of the Agreed Announcement which assures the early departure of all detained Americans we are considering validating the passports of some of the newspaper and publishing fraternity who have applied to travel to mainland China. It would be added that of course no actual travel to mainland China could be approved until all the detained Americans are out, but it is assumed that this is a matter of only a short time in view of the explicit terms of the Agreed Announcement. The thinking [Facsimile Page 3] here is that this might be added bait to the Chinese Communists to proceed rapidly with the release of all the remaining Americans. We know that they are very anxious to arrange visits by various newspaper people and authors to the PRC. Of course, we could not introduce travel as an agenda item on our side at Geneva, but a little restrained publicity along this line outside of Geneva might strengthen your hand. Do you have any comments?
We do not much relish the trade embargo item on the Agenda, but since it would come after the renunciation of force, we do not anticipate that we will have to cross that bridge any time soon. If it ever comes up, we can seize the opportunity to present the rationale behind our trade controls.
We are troubled at the conspicuous absence of any release announcements since September 10.
The blunt tie-in by Wang of further releases with Item 2 progress gives us forebodings, as does the conversation of O’Neill with Chang Han-fu in Peiping a week ago.
[Typeset Page 340]We still have no word of any arrangement for British Embassy contact with the detained Americans.
The Indian Embassy here says it is making no arrangements for travel of Chinese to the PRC until it receives assurances of reimbursement from the PRC for travel funds advanced.
You will be glad to know that Hubert Graves is reassigned to the British Embassy here as Minister to handle Far Eastern matters. He is arriving next week. Rob Scott left on Wednesday for Singapore via London.
After a lot of discussion and some confusion we have arranged to send Peter Colm of DRF to assist you thus releasing Ralph Clough to help me in the chronic jam which I confront. Colm is one of the ablest and quickest men in DRF. He has been following all the documents on the talks closely. We will see that he gets something of the thinking of the people who are closest to the talks here before he leaves. We would have preferred to send one of our own CA men—Osborn or Comiskey—for the sake of the experience, but in view of the backlog of work here it could not be justified. It would make no sense to largely cancel out the return of Clough.
[text not declassified]
I hope you have a good interlude at Prague and return refreshed to the fray.
Warmest regards,
- Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal.↩