59. Letter 2 from McConaughy to Johnson1
[Facsimile Page 1]I hope to get off a short note to you by each pouch (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) whether or not there is much that is new to pass on to you.
The report of the 4th meeting on August 8 was illuminating. It was good to see how well you met the cleverness of Wang Ping-nan and kept him on the defensive despite the resourcefulness of his approach and the subtlety of his misrepresentations. We are struck by the fact that the full report of the meetings gives an appreciation of the atmosphere of the talks no condensed summary can convey.
Walter Robertson and I hope to meet with the Secretary today on your 364 which anticipates questions which will probably arise in the near future. We concur that the question of what degree of performance on Americans will be considered sufficient for our agreement on representation ought to be deferred. There is considerable skepticism as to whether we should be prepared to give on the representation proposal to the extent that you suggest. The symbolic significance of the representation issue has become magnified here and every angle of any agreement we make will be exposed to the closest scrutiny in many quarters. The GRC of course is watching us like a hawk on this. Wellington Koo was in yesterday chiefly to stress the dangers implicit in any concession on the representation issue going beyond students who take the initiative to return to the mainland. I am sending you a copy of this memorandum of conversation. It is true that friends and relatives of Chinese in this country can now write them from China, but this is not the same as writing to an officially designated representing Embassy. I have no doubt that the Chinese Communists have the resources to get the names and addresses of great numbers of Chinese students in this country and to arrange for real or pretended relatives in China to address the Indian Embassy in regard to them. Thus the Indian Embassy might get involved in a mass of cases. This would give the Chinese Communists the widespread access [Facsimile Page 2] they want to Chinese students in this country in practice, whether they have it in theory or not. We hope to get an instruction to you on this by the end of the week.
[Typeset Page 66]The information we got from Elting Arnold of Treasury, who is in charge of Foreign Assets Control (our 429) does not afford you anything useful for your discussions with Wang. As you can see, Treasury has followed a very hard-boiled policy on remittances from Mainland China for repatriation of Chinese. We can not thrash out the matter with Treasury now because your instructions are so closely held. Of course we do not anticipate any difficulty with them if the matter ever comes to a head, since your instructions were explicitly approved by the President. Actually it will be a good thing from an economic warfare standpoint to require the Communists to remit dollars to pay for the travel of those who want to return.
I am enclosing a copy of the Ludwell Denny article from Geneva which disturbed the Secretary and which seems to involve a leak somewhere. Nobody is accusing anyone of leaking. It is just that we are mystified where all the information is coming from and trying to run down all leads. It is not inconceivable that the information could have been deduced by Denny from information supplied by Wang to Communist correspondents.
I suppose you got the copy of the memorandum of conversation of August 3 between Murphy, Robertson, Devaney and myself. I think INS is well in line. I am proposing that we give them copies of those parts of your conversations which directly concern their practices. I believe it will help to keep them happy and insure that they are disposed to cooperate fully.
We are considering your cable on a junior assistant to help you when Ed Martin departs and Ralph Clough moves up. If we can raise the money I would like to send one of our junior China Language officers. It would put a strain on us here but I believe he would be more useful to you than an officer from a European post and it would be very valuable experience for him. I am still awaiting word from you as to whether you think Martin should stay on a few days after the War College opens. I do not want to encourage this unless you consider it highly desirable, but I believe the Commandant would agree if the Department requested it at a high level. And I do not think it would spoil the course for Ed since the first days are largely for orientation. The added insight he will have on Chinese Communist aims and negotiating tactics will be a very valuable contribution to the course at the War College.
The Secretary is holding a press conference in a few minutes. We will send you a transcript of the pertinent portions as soon as we get it.
Good luck and good wishes,
- Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal. Printed from an unsigned copy.↩