Office of the Historian

288. Memorandum From the Regional Planning Adviser for Far Eastern Affairs (Green) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Parsons)0

Washington, July 20, 1959.

SUBJECT

  • Serious Warnings of Alleged Violations of ChiCom-Claimed Territory

The attached telegram,1 plus the fact we drew our 58th warning (over the “dog-leg” operation)2 last night, prompted Admiral Burke to [Page 572] request that his staff get together with State to see what action, if any, might be taken. Admiral Burke suggested the possibility of an inspired story in the U.S. press showing the lack of legal basis to the ChiCom warnings.

Larry Lutkins and I will discuss this with CNO representatives tomorrow after our biweekly briefing. I suggested to the Navy that meanwhile it prepare a chart of violations showing dates, nature of intrusion, exact location, etc. I shall also check with INR and USIS re the question of impact, although I doubt whether these warnings receive much if any notice in free Asia.

My preliminary reaction is to continue to ignore the warnings and to continue the same pattern of patrol operations. This reaction is based on the suppositions that the purpose of the serious warnings is (a) to cause us uneasiness and to scare us into shifting our patrol operations further out to sea; (b) to draw public attention, especially in East Asia, to how “provocatively” close our patrols operate to the China mainland. Any response from our side would run the risk of giving additional notice to the “serious warnings” and might imply to the Communists that we were, in fact, concerned.

Our Navy continues to press for State endorsement of occasional USN operations inside the 12 mile limit to show that we do not honor that limit. Here again, I recommend that we hold the line of staying outside the 12 mile limit, although not objecting to occasional “dog-leg” operations which could have the effect our Navy desires without altering present patterns of operations and without running unnecessary risks of being shown up as acting in a provocative manner.

I would be interested in your reactions to the above propositions.3

  1. Source: Department of State, FE Files: Lot 63 D 76, Memoranda. Secret.↩
  2. The attachment, telegram 170220Z from CINCPACFLT to CNO, July 17, noted that the PRC Government’s “serious warnings” of alleged violations of Chinese Communist territory by U.S. ships and planes now numbered 57 and requested guidance as to “whether we should do more than simply ignore them.”↩
  3. Reference is to an area near Matsu routinely traversed by U.S. naval patrols. In this area the PRC apparently used a base line drawn between some small islands far out to sea which advanced their claim far out into the Strait. See the memorandum of conversation between Parsons and Counselor of the British Embassy A.J. de la Mare, October 24, 1958, in the Supplement. (Department of State, Central Files, 793.00/10–2458)↩
  4. The source text bears Parsons’ handwritten note: “I agree. JGP”.↩