286. Telegram 867 from Geneva1
Geneva, October 14, 1955, 4
p.m.
867. From Johnson.
- 1.
- Notable aspect today’s meeting was Wang’s willingness discuss exclusively, albeit negatively, our renunciation of force proposal. He made no effort whatever force any discussion either of his items and his reaction to my renewed discussion of implementation was very mild. In fact as will be seen from full meeting record, during give and take he perhaps somewhat inadvertently gave us credit for full implementation agreed announcement. He also readily agreed to my proposal for normally weekly meetings. His manner and tone of delivery of his opening statement was also mild and again full record of meeting prepared on basis his interpreter’s translation give somewhat harder impression than original Chinese.
- 2.
- There was no need to and I felt it undesirable make presentation on missing military personnel at today’s meeting.
- 3.
- While using it as a peg on which to hang his criticism of US policy, Wang’s presentation today shows a disposition to acquiesce in discussion around our renunciation of force proposal which we should try to explain.
- 4.
- His reply today was to be expected. Stripped of propaganda verbiage one of his theses appears to be that presence of US forces in Taiwan is in itself “threat of force.” He is taking an obviously extreme bargaining position in asking for withdrawal US forces from Taiwan and one of our problems will be to probe for their real position for as long as possible [Facsimile Page 2] while at same time not running into a deadlock or in any way sacrificing our position on renunciation of force or scope these talks.
- 5.
- Parliamentary situation is such that he will be expecting fairly comprehensive statement from me at next meeting. Believe statement must include at least some refutation his charges on “American aggression against Taiwan.”
Gowen
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/10–1455. Secret; Priority; Limited Distribution.↩