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

422. Letter 27 from McConaughy to Johnson¹

Letter No. 27

Washington, December 16, 1955

Dear Alex:

I am sure you must have been concerned at the last two meetings as to whether the tactics being adopted might not lead to an early break in the talks. This problem has been given very serious consideration here. The consensus is that on the one hand the time has come when we must adopt a more forceful position with respect to Chinese Communist failure to implement the Agreed Announcement and on the other the Communists are not in a favorable position to break off the talks. These are the considerations which led to the decision to undertake tactics possibly involving greater risk of a break. The matter was discussed with the Secretary himself and he agreed that the time had come to take a stiffer attitude. I know that you have felt in the past that your basic instructions to keep the talks going frequently prevented you from taking as strong a line as you would have liked. The feeling here now is that we have in the talks accomplished a good deal up to this point toward our objective of making it more difficult for the Chinese Communists to resort to force and that we can now take greater risks than heretofore.

How useful to you are the FLDNP and ALDLP figures sent each week? I notice that you have not used them recently in the meetings, and that in any case, the Chinese do not pay much attention to them. Their compilation requires a considerable investment in time by I&NS and CA. Unless you feel otherwise we plan to discontinue this work.

With regard to the details in the cases of missing US military personnel, we have tracked down some of the Chinese newspapers in which there are probably references to some of the 450 men on your list. It will require a lot at work to go through the papers and find the names. Therefore, we do not plan to undertake it until such time as it appears you may be called upon to take up this matter again in Geneva.

I am enclosing a copy of a speech made by Nehru September 6 which you may wish to refer to next time you discuss renunciation of force with Wang. You will note on page I–2 that Nehru has explicitly renounced force with regard to Goa.

We have received a request for the original Chinese version of Wang’s letter of September 16. If any of your staff has the time we should appreciate your sending us copies both of this letter and of the Chinese draft Agreed Announcement on the renunciation of the use of force in Chinese.

Mr. Hoover and Mr. Robertson believe that we have been sitting on the story of the mistreated Americans about long enough. The time may have come for us to release some accounts of the outrageous treatment experienced by these people. We are now working on an account of the experiences of a number of people. It is still an open question how we will use this material. The main objective would be to show foreign countries which may have some influence in Peiping what we are confronting. No final decision to use this material immediately has been made. The compilation of the material is on a contingency basis, but the tendency is to think that we should use it fairly soon unless there is an early favorable development in regard to the 14. The most impressive account we have is the ghastly story of Bersohn, which he has written in full. Being an intelligent and articulate person, his story is effective, all the more so because it is written in an objective, matter of fact way without emotion, sermonizing or generalization. I am enclosing a copy of a memorandum from John Henderson to Mr. Robertson embodying his ideas of how an information campaign should be conducted. If you have any thoughts on this, I would suggest that you get them in immediately.

I am engrossed now in drafting a Departmental statement in reply to the Chinese Communist press release of last night. It is a rush effort since we must issue it this afternoon.

I am planning to take a little leave next week if we get the recess. Otherwise, I expect to continue on the job.

The long lapse in my letters is explained by the fact that there just has not been any background or long-term guidance I could give you which was not embodied in the official telegrams. I hope that it will be different from now on.

I trust your administrative problems that you mentioned in your letter No. 18 are pretty well solved with the employment of Helena Osborn as your secretary and the assignment of Ekvall to Paris.

It was good to hear your voice on the telephone last night. Congratulations on your continued good handling of your trying assignment, and holiday greetings and good wishes to both you and Pat.

Sincerely yours,

Walter P. McConaughy

Enclosures:

1. Three British notes.

2. Nehru speech.

3. Memorandum from Mr. Henderson.

1. Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal.