Office of the Historian

121. Memorandum From James C. Thomson, Jr., of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1

Washington, February 3, 1966.

SUBJECT

  • Moment of truth with GRC regarding Mainland counter-attack?

You asked me about the significance of Charge Hummel’s account of his conversation with Chiang Ching-kuo last week regarding U.S. views of the GRC’s most recent counter-attack proposal (Taipei’s 797, attached).2

Here is the background:

1.
On September 22, Chiang Ching-kuo submitted to McNarmara a GRC proposal for ChiNat landings on the mainland with a view to seizing China’s five Southwest provinces (a proposal generally identified as “Great Torch-5”). McNamara said that we would give the proposal careful study. [3 lines of source text not declassified] The same proposal was [Page 248] pressed on General Wheeler by Chiang Kai-shek in his conversation on December 29.
2.
On November 16, the JCS passed to McNamara its views of the GRC proposal.3 In brief, the Chiefs concluded that (a) “there is no apparent possibility of successfully executing the concept as proposed”; (b) “the U.S. should not engage in a comprehensive bilateral study of the proposed concept”; and (c) the U.S. should [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] examine GRC concepts and strategies for the Southeast Asian situation, to compare assessments of the mainland situation with particular reference to the prospects of popular uprisings and defections,” and to critique GRC unilateral plans. The central point of the JCS paper was that the GRC proposal would depend for its success on massive U.S. naval, air and logistic support, and on large-scale popular uprisings and defections once a landing had been accomplished.
3.
On January 19, State and Defense instructed Hummel to give a polite but negative oral response to Chiang Ching-kuo along the lines of the JCS recommendation (Deptel 728 to Taipei, attached).
4.
On January 24, Hummel conveyed this message to young Chiang, and the latter’s response was “disappointment and irritation.” On the 25th, Ching-kuo requested a written precis of Hummel’s message, to be passed to his father.
5.
On January 28, the Department came through with a written precis which Hummel gave to young Chiang on the 29th (Deptel 762 to Taipei, attached). To date, we have had no further response from the GRC.

Comment: This four-month exchange is bringing to a head a fundamental but usually submerged issue—the basic divergence between U.S. and GRC objectives in the conflict with Asian communism. We have long understood that GRC desire for war with mainland China and U.S. desire to avoid such a collision run at cross purposes; but we have usually been able to mute and disguise these differences.

The GRC’s present proposal has the Gimo’s personal imprimatur. We have met it head on with the JCS’s best judgment. The result has made Chiang Ching-kuo unhappy, and it is predictable that Chiang Kai-shek himself will explode. Such an explosion may take the form of a private letter to the President or, more likely, a blunt and passionate unburdening on the next high-level American visitor to Taiwan; also, conceivably, some attempts to complain to sympathetic Congressional leaders.

We should anticipate any such moves and apply soft soap generously; but there is little we can do to provide the assurance Taipei seeks on an issue on which our military and civilian thinkers are firm and [Page 249] united. The immediate price we may have to pay for exercising our realistic best judgment is some foot-dragging by the GRC on expanded use of Taiwan facilities in connection with the Vietnam war.

In brief, the GRC has pushed us harder than ever on our central point of divergence and has received, politely, the response it feared and expected. The result will further complicate U.S.- GRC relations in a year when they are already clouded by the ChiRep issue and the 7-month non-appearance of a U.S. Ambassador in Taipei.

Jim
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, China, Vol. V. Secret. A note in Bundy’s handwriting reads, “Thanks; a good memo. McGB”.↩
  2. The reference telegrams are not attached to the source text, but see Documents 119 and 120.↩
  3. Document 110.↩