Office of the Historian

100. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Poland0

Washington, September 17, 1958, 7:19 p.m.

292. Beam–Wang Talks. Deptel 285 repeated information Taipei 231 USUN 236.1 After GRC Ambassador Yeh was given substance instructions to you contained reftel and text proposed agreed announcement (Deptel 286 repeated information Taipei 232 USUN 237)2was read to him last night he requested on his own initiative that your Thursday meeting with Wang be postponed until GRC able give us its views.3 GRC Foreign Ministry subsequently made identical request through Embassy Taipei. When Acting Secretary informed Yeh today US could not request such postponement, latter asked that we at least postpone presenting proposed Agreed Announcement at meeting.4

Yeh said while he had not received full views his Government he convinced it would take US proposal very hard. He alluded particularly to paragraph 2b, which he Felt put GRC on same plane as Communists. He argued that since Communists had initiated current hostilities, first essential was for them to stop firing. He hoped that in meeting we would put onus for hostilities squarely on Wang.

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Acting Secretary indicated we had stressed primary importance of cease-fire in first meeting and would continue to do so. He denied we had ever put GRC on same plane as Communists either publicly or privately.

In your presentation Thursday meeting you should bear in mind GRC reaction to proposed Agreed Announcement and again make clear to Wang fact of Peiping’s responsibility for current hostilities and its obligation to bring them to immediate end. We are informing Yeh that you are being given this supplemental guidance5 (for such use as he may wish to make of it with the GIMO). You should not postpone presentation draft Agreed Announcement at Thursday meeting.

Herter
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/9–1758. Secret; Niact; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Martin, cleared in draft by Herter and in substance by Robertson, and approved by Parsons. Repeated to USUN for Robertson and niact to Taipei. The documents cited in footnotes 3–5 below are in the Supplement.↩
  2. Document 96.↩
  3. Document 97.↩
  4. In a meeting with Parsons, recorded in a September 17 memorandum of conversation by Parsons. (Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/9–1758)↩
  5. The meeting was recorded in a September 17 memorandum of conversation by Martin. (Ibid.)↩
  6. Parsons informed Yeh in a telephone conversation that evening, recorded in a September 17 memorandum of conversation. (Ibid.)↩