Office of the Historian

282. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, May 7, 1959.

SUBJECT

  • Governor Harriman’s Visit to U.S.S.R.

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Averell Harriman, Former Governor of New York
  • Foy D. Kohler, Assistant Secretary, EUR

During Governor Harriman’s call on the Secretary regarding the former’s forthcoming visit to the U.S.S.R., Harriman referred to his desire to explore an offer made by Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Mikoyan to arrange for the Governor to visit Communist China. Mr. Harriman stated that he had been fully accredited as a regular correspondent by the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) which had temporarily withdrawn the accreditation of its present regular correspondent. Secretary Herter questioned whether Harriman was qualified under the Department’s definition of “full-time American correspondent” who would be permitted to go to Red China.1 In this connection, the Secretary said he supposed Harriman would be prepared to be stationed in Red China “on a regular basis for six months or longer.” The Secretary also observed that a visitor of Harriman’s stature would lend considerable prestige to the Chinese Communists and be exploited by their propaganda. Mr. Harriman was noncommittal with respect to the Secretary’s remarks and sought to put them aside by observing that the chances of the trip to Communist China working out were probably very limited. He did say in this connection that if the trip should materialize it would presumably be in the form of a side trip by Soviet jet airlines from Moscow.2

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 64 D 199. Confidential. Drafted by Kohler.↩
  2. Reference is to the Department’s policy, in effect since August 1957, of issuing passports without restrictions on travel to mainland China to one correspondent from each of a number of newsgathering organizations which were prepared to station a correspondent in China on a resident basis. For text of the announcement of this policy on August 22, 1957, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1957, pp. 1134–1135; for text of a statement issued on April 23, 1959, announcing its extension, see ibid., 1959, pp. 1165–1166.↩
  3. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, representing the North American Newspaper Alliance, discussed Harriman’s request with Murphy and other Department officials on May 18. (Memorandum of conversation, May 18; Department of State, Central Files, 911.6293) Tocah 40 to Geneva, May 21, informed Herter of the conversation and recommended approval of the application as coming within the purview of established policy; Cahto 23 from Geneva, May 22, transmitted Hoover’s approval. (Ibid., 611.93/5–2159 and 611.93/5–2259, respectively; see Supplement) Telegram 2445 from Moscow, June 3, reported that Harriman would not visit China because he had not received a visa. (Department of State, 032–Harriman, Averell/6–359)↩