739. Letter from Osborn to McConaughy1
From your note on the slip transmitting Fr. McCarthy’s latest letter, I got the impression there may have been some misunderstanding back there about the nature of the proposed statement mentioned in the Ambassador’s last comment telegram. As will have been made clear by the Ambassador’s letter No. 47, this statement is proposed for release only in case Wang breaks or comes close to it, and was not intended as a recommended draft of the statement on implementation. I hope no delay has been occasioned in the release of the Department’s statement.
As to why the Chinese Communists allowed the McCarthy incident to happen, it seems only to make sense (and even then not good sense) if it is remembered that the Chicoms have their own interpretation of the Agreed Announcement, which differs from ours—or from any rational man’s. In the light of their distorted interpretation, the McCarthy correspondence documents, not a case of infraction of the Announcement, but a case of fulfillment of its terms. They maintain that the Announcement applies to imprisoned Americans, so far as the right to contact the UK Charge is concerned; however, they say the Americans’ right of expeditious return can only be exercised after their cases have been “settled”. Accordingly, the Chicoms maintain that there can be no question of “obstruction” until after settlement of a case. Further, they insist that neither the Announcement nor the third power arrangement has any relation to the sentences or the treatment of imprisoned Americans.
Another element in the picture is the fact that Wang was so obviously not briefed on the details of the McCarthy [Facsimile Page 2] incident. If the whole thing had been carefully planned, Wang would surely have been briefed. Accordingly it seems reasonable to suppose the incident reflects neither a calculated maneuver nor a significant change of policy. It probably occurred as an unforeseen development in the carrying out of existing policies.
I would guess at a sequence of events something like this:
- 1.
- The Chicoms allowed McCarthy to send his September 1 letter because they did not want to have McCarthy, after his eventual release, charging them with having denied him this elementary right under the Agreed Announcement, a right which they have acknowledged, even under their strained interpretation of the Announcement.
- 2.
- The Chicoms permitted McCarthy to request an interview with the UK Charge, and they O.K.’d the UK arrangements for the interview, because they wanted to provide an illustration of Chicom compliance with the Agreed Announcement—as they interpret it.
- 3.
- In the meantime, spunky, outspoken Fr. McCarthy precipitates the contradicitions inherent in the Chicom interpretation of the Announcement by telling his jailers what he plans to say to Addis. He makes it clear he is going to tell Addis just how unjust his imprisonment has been, and is going to ask that the UK Charge make representations, not merely asking for his, McCarthy’s release, but also setting forth in full detail the injustice of the “obstruction” that has been offered in his case. The jailers pass these remarks on to Peiping and request instructions.
- 4.
- Peiping cannot accept McCarthy’s right to request this kind of representation without by implication acknowledging: (a) that imprisonment constitutes obstruction, and (b) that the justice/injustice of charges, treatment of prisoners, etc., are legitimate subjects of concern under the Agreed Announcement. Therefore Peiping advises the Shanghai jailers that McCarthy has no right to ask for the kind of representations he wants. When this word is given to McCarthy, he takes everybody completely by surprise with his refusal to see Addis.
- 5.
- Given the above background, and the Chicom inerpretation of the Agreed Announcement, their decision to let McCarthy’s October 6 letter pass is not surprising. They realize how suspicious this affair has looked to Addis and will look to the world; they welcome this confirmation that McCarthy had indeed refused to see Addis. To the Chicoms, in the light of their interpretation of the Announcement, McCarthy’s October 6 letter illustrates, not their infraction of the terms of the Announcement, but their consistency in abiding by these terms, as they have been construed in Peiping.
All this is mere guesswork, of course, but it seems to me the most probable explanation of what has happened. The one encouraging thing about the affair, to my mind, is that Peiping still feels constrained to maintain the pretense of compliance with the Announcement, and there is thus still some hope for further releases in the not-too-distant future.
Please excuse the hasty drafting, necessitated by the fact our weekly pouch is closing in about half an hour.
Hope to see you all one of these days. Regards to all, from the both of us
Sincerely,
P.S. I appreciated the September monthly notes very much. Hope to receive October’s also. Thanks, Irene and Doug.
- Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Secret; Official–Informal.↩