198. Telegram From Secretary of State Dulles to the Department of State0
Dulte 2. Eyes only Acting Secretary for President from Secretary.
Dear Mr. President: After spending bits of yesterday at Rome, at our air base outside of London with SELWYN LLOYD, at Eielson Base from which I bothered you, we finally brought the day to a close by arriving at Taiwan except of course by then we had lost Monday1 at the date line.
I spent the morning being briefed by our military about the Quemoy situation. There is no clear verdict as to why the bombardment was resumed and just what it means. The majority view was that it probably did not presage a major effort to take the islands by assault but primarily an effort to get away from the weekly or biweekly “extensions” and to create and perpetuate a state of uncertainty which is bad for morale. The disposition here is not to respond by our convoying further supplies for the next few days to see what develops. The supply situation has been so improved as to make this seem acceptable to our military, at least from their standpoint. However, from the political standpoint we need to bear in mind that we had announced that the orders to the Seventh Fleet were to assist so long as there was interdiction fire, to cease assisting if the interdiction fire ceased but to resume assisting if the firing resumed. However, I think we can from a political standpoint wait two or three days although I would not for long think it wise to act as though we had been deterred by Communist threats.
This afternoon I had a long talk alone with Chiang, George Yeh being the only other person present as interpreter. I expounded our general philosophy about the true role of the Republic of China and the need to eliminate the fear of the world that it is a threat to the peace. I am not certain that I got my ideas adequately across. It is difficult to tell when working through an interpreter. I did not at this stage make any concrete suggestions, leaving that until later. The Generalissimo reaffirmed his philosophy about returning to the mainland and that it would not happen unless and until there was a real desire on the part of the people reflected by their revolution against their Communist oppressors. He pleaded for more trust and confidence on our part. I emphasized that he did have a trust and confidence of those who knew him but that his position had been so consistently misrepresented not only by the Communists but even by others that it was necessary to have some dramatic gestures from time to time to emphasize his desire for peace rather than [Page 421] for war. I am leaving now for a small dinner he is giving and then perhaps tomorrow we shall get down to some more concrete matters which will throw more light on whether or not my talk today had any real impact.
I trust that your talks with the voters2 are more surely persuasive than my talk with the Generalissimo.
Faithfully yours, FOSTER.