308. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Kohler) to Secretary of State Herter0
SUBJECT
- Public U.S. Comment on the Sino-Soviet Relationship
Since your Octobers press conference1 and Mr. Dillon’s October 7 speech to the Far East-America Council of Commerce and Industry2 we have noted an inclination on the part of some U.S. newsmen to look for [Page 610] changes in the U.S. approach toward the Soviet relationship with Communist China. Some newsmen have interpreted your remark concerning Moscow’s share in the responsibility for Peiping’s actions as a new “doctrine” in U.S. policy, “the doctrine of partial responsibility.”
As reflected in the position papers prepared for the Khrushchev visit, we believe that the U.S.S.R. should be urged to restrain Communist Chinese aggressiveness. The U.S.S.R.’s preeminent position in the Bloc and Communist China’s dependence on the U.S.S.R. for indispensable economic, technological, and military end-item assistance places the U.S.S.R. in a strong position to influence Chinese Communist policy. If, as seems fairly clear, Khrushchev wishes to avoid being drawn into a nuclear war over issues in which Soviet vital interests are not directly threatened, he probably will attempt to restrain and may already have restrained Peiping in connection with the Taiwan problem.
Although the Soviets maintain that Taiwan is an internal Chinese problem, they apparently recognize that it is also de facto an international issue. There is, therefore, reason to assume that Khrushchev is seeking to get the Chinese Communists to give practical application to the principle of non-use of force in connection with Taiwan (Khrushchev as a Communist leader is not in a position to identify publicly the Chinese Communist effort to obtain control of Taiwan as an international, rather than a domestic issue). This assumption certainly was borne out, rather than weakened, by Khrushchev’s recent conduct in Peiping. To win Peiping’s acceptance of this tacit arrangement will be a hard task for Khrushchev because it involves a Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the justice of liberative wars and because it subordinates a vital issue in Communist China to a bilateral U.S.-Soviet understanding that nuclear warfare must be avoided.
We think it was useful to make the point publicly once or twice that the U.S.S.R. must assume some responsibility for actions by other Bloc countries as long as the Bloc claims to have monolithic unity and is tied together by military alliances. But we should avoid going too far in taxing the Soviets with responsibility for actions over which they have less control than they have with other parties. The Soviets certainly are not averse to being regarded as the leader of the Bloc. But if this point is unduly stressed, they may be forced to increase their public support of Chinese Communist actions and will have less room for maneuver and compromise in places like the U.N.
EUR recommends that for the time being discussion of Sino-Soviet relations be played down in our propaganda output. We should continue to draw attention to the disparity between actions by Communist China and Soviet statements about coexistence. But as long as there is reason to believe that the Soviets are urging moderation on Peiping, we should not overstress Soviet responsibility for Chinese Communist actions.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 661.93/10–1659. Confidential. Drafted by Culver Gleysteen of the Office of Soviet Union Affairs and sent through Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs Livingston T. Merchant with a copy to Murphy. Memoranda from Parsons and Berding commenting on this memorandum, both dated October 22, are ibid., 661.93/10–2259. A memorandum of October 16 from Green to Parsons on the subject of “The Herter Doctrine” is ibid., 661.93/10–1659; both documents are in the Supplement.↩
- See Document 306.↩
- For text, see Department of State Bulletin, October 26, 1959, pp. 571–574.↩