321. Editorial Note
On May 31 Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi called in British Charge Hopson in Peking and delivered a verbal message to be transmitted to the United States. This was the same message, Chen explained, that Premier Chou En-lai had asked President Ayub Khan of Pakistan to deliver when they met in Peking on April 2. Ayub’s scheduled trip to Washington had been postponed and Chou was concerned that the message had not been transmitted. Consequently, Chen asked Hopson to transmit the four-point message through London to Washington:
- 1.
- China will not provoke war with the United States
- 2.
- What China says counts
- 3.
- China is prepared
- 4.
- If the United States bombs China that would mean war and there would be no limits to the war.
Chen expanded upon these four points in an interview of over an hour. He indicated that China supported Vietnam unconditionally and viewed aggression against Vietnam as aggression against China. But he added that China would take direct part in the conflict only “if the war was expanded to Chinese territory.” Hopson reported the message and the interview in telegrams to London on May 31 and June 1.
The British Embassy in Washington passed copies of the telegrams to the Department of State on June 2. (Department of State, Ball Papers: Lot 72 D 272, Vietnam (Misc IV)) On June 4 McGeorge Bundy sent copies of the telegrams to President Johnson with a covering note indicating that the Chinese message was so interesting that the President would [Page 701] want to read the telegrams himself. Bundy noted that Secretary of State Rusk’s impression was that it was a relatively defensive message, and Bundy added that his own appreciation was mixed: “The basic trouble with the message is that it does not tell us at all at what point the Chinese might move in Vietnam itself in a way which would force us to act against China. And that of course is the $64 question.” (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XI) On June 5 Bundy also sent the President an assessment of the message prepared in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. (Ibid.)
In a June 4 memorandum to the President, McGeorge Bundy proposed a meeting on Saturday, June 5, to discuss developments in Vietnam and “the appropriate shape of an answer to the Chinese.” Bundy suggested that, in addition to the President and himself, participation in the meeting be limited to Rusk, Ball, McNamara, and possibly Raborn. (Ibid.) According to the logmaintained in the White House, such a meeting took place on June 5 at the Department of State over lunch. (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary) No other record of that meeting has been found. In a memorandum to Rusk on June 5, however, William Bundy noted that he had informed the British Embassy that Hopson should be authorized to reply to the Chinese that the United States had received the message. (Ibid., National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XXXV)