672. Letter 49 from McConaughy to Johnson1
We all liked the way you handled the June 28 meeting. The extemporaneous review of the position on renunciation was fine. You further exposed the illogic of Wang’s position on the prisoner question while [Typeset Page 1090] keeping him guessing as to what the Indian Embassy has told us and how we will proceed with the interviews. While your new format for your full report of the meeting was quite intelligible, I do not believe we get the full flavor of the exchanges as well as with the customary form. Maybe it is just that we are accustomed to the indirect rather than the direct discourse. But in any case the “telegraphese” destroys some of the shadings which convey the overtones of the dialogue. Who ever called you down for excess verbiage should not have done so. We ran into the same problem here with our guidance telegrams. An employee of DC/T complained about our failure to economize on words. I took the matter to Stufflebeam, the Chief of the office, pointing out that the administrative subordinate should not even see these limit distribution telegrams much less quibble about the number of words in them. Stufflebeam agreed fully and stated he would issue orders that in view of the importance of the talks and the need for conveying exact inflections, no questions would be raised as to unnecessary words. The same principle would apply to you. I would suggest [Facsimile Page 2] that you go back to the old form and abandon the “telegraphese”. Of course we endeavor to cut out any completely unnecessary articles and prepositions but we do not consider ourselves as constricted as in the case of routine messages.
The Indian Embassy on June 28 acknowledged our letter of June 27 saying they had again referred the matter to Delhi. I suppose there is a remote chance of some sort of reconsideration but we cannot rely on it. Our plans are to proceed with the visits ourselves, probably in company with an American Red Cross representative, after giving the Indians a reasonable time for reply to our June 27 letter. We have no evidence that any of the prisoners are interested in returning to Mainland China. A number have already voluntarily indicated that they have no interest in going to Communist China. There is some possibility that one or two may apply to go. We recognize that you would be helped if we could move fairly rapidly on the interviews with the prisoners. We hope to get going just as soon as we have given the Indians a fair period of time to reconsider.
Enclosed is a copy of a letter we have received from Purdue University regarding another insane Chinese student who is held in an Indiana State Asylum at Logansport. We are trying to get the facts on this with the help of the I & N.S. and the Indiana authorities. We are informing Purdue that of course the student is free to return to Mainland China if he wants to do so, provided the responsible authorities consider that he is mentally competent to make a decision, and feel that he can safely be released from the hospital where he is undergoing treatment. This looks like the Liu case all over again.
[Typeset Page 1091] [Facsimile Page 3]We received your letter No. 39 of June 29 on July 5, which contained much of interest. The indication that Wang expects to carry right on through the summer is significant. We agree that it is not too early to start thinking about the various possibilities that may develop in the Autumn. The disposition here is not to try to develop anything new on renunciation. You will have to continue using your ingenuity to play the same theme. There will be a chance to introduce new material on implementation as we go forward with the prisoner question.
I sympathize with your no-vacation dilemma. I wonder if something could not be maneuvered around the Swiss National Holiday on August 1. It falls on Wednesday but maybe a meeting could be skipped that week without your taking all the initiative since the usual Thursday meeting date is so close to the holiday. Even a vacation of one week would certainly help.
[text not declassified]
Ralph Clough’s father died suddenly last Sunday. He has been out all week. Judge Phleger is away for several days, but participated in a Geneva meeting with WSR and me on Tuesday, just before he left. Bill Sebald is due back from his grand tour of the entire Far Eastern area on July 22.
[Facsimile Page 4]Please ask Helenka to include a carbon copy of your letters in the future.
Regards and good wishes to all of you,
Sincerely,
Enclosures:
- 1.
- Carbon copy of letter to Secretary Dulles from A.H. Tichenor re [text not declassified]
- 2.
- Article from The Times—Thursday May 24, 1956
- Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal.↩