34. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of State Herter to Secretary of State Dulles0
SUBJECT
- Recommended Warning to Peiping Against Attacking the Offshore Islands
Accompanied by Bob Murphy, Walter Robertson and Gerry Smith, I attended a special JCS meeting this morning1 called at my request to discuss the Taiwan Straits situation where tensions are mounting. What I learned at this JCS meeting confirmed my view that there is need to warn the Chinese Communists that, if they attempt to seize Quemoy or Matsu by assault or interdiction, they run the clear risk of U.S. military countermeasures to keep those islands in GRC hands. This seems to be the most effective way to preserve these islands and the peace, but involves terribly serious risks.
We and the Joint Chiefs agreed that free China’s loss of these islands would almost inevitably lead to attacks on Taiwan in which the free world has such a vital stake. JCS planning recognizes that if there is a direct assault on the Offshore Islands, the U.S. must intervene or the islands will be lost. If the Chinese Communists attempt to blockade the islands and starve them out, the JCS do not plan for at least initial U.S. intervention, but if the blockade is at last a success—and the Chinese Communists have the capability to make it successful—then we would have to go in. The JCS pointed out that, in either the event of an assault or an interdiction, effective U.S. intervention would necessitate nuclear bombing of mainland bases. This would be done on as selective a scale as possible beginning with six to eight airfields in the vicinity of Amoy. However, if the Communists persisted in attacking the Islands, we would have to face up to the possibility of having to conduct nuclear attacks deep into China and as far north as Shanghai involving likely Communist nuclear retaliation against our positions in Taiwan, Okinawa and perhaps elsewhere.
The Joint Chiefs consider it quite possible that the Chinese Communists will keep closing in on the Offshore Islands, probing to see our reaction, but that they might well be dissuaded from carrying this operation too far if they knew it was our intention to intervene.
[Page 57]We considered a number of ways of conveying a warning to Peiping and came to the conclusion that it should not be in the form of an explicit public statement or declaration, but rather through an effective confidential diplomatic channel. However, if we do so warn Peiping, we must, of course, be prepared to make good on our stated intentions, bearing in mind all that that might involve.
I therefore recommend that you might wish to confer with the President again with a view to your conveying informally and verbally to Gromyko or Menshikov an indication of our intention to prevent the seizure or successful interdiction of the Offshore Islands. If any such conversation as suggested above took place with Russians, Macomber feels it essential to consider Congressional implications in advance. In spite of the urgent situation, I think you should delay decision until your return to Washington and further talks with the President.2
If a question on this issue should come up at a press conference, I hope that you could fall back on the Formosa Resolution.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 793.00/8–1558. Top Secret. A notation on the source text reads: “Sec saw 8/16.” Secretary Dulles was away from Washington August 12–22. During most of that time he was in New York for an emergency special session of the U.N. General Assembly.↩
- A record of the substance of discussion at the State–JCS meeting on August 15 is ibid., State–JCS Meetings: Lot 61 D 417, Volume VI.↩
- The handwritten note “OK” appears in the margin of the source text.↩