122. Memorandum From James C. Thomson, Jr., of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
SUBJECT
- Seventh-Floor Assignment for Ambassador Reischauer?
1. Recommendation
I have a rather simple proposal that would serve our national interests in the Far East and also preserve a rare talent within government service: that Ambassador Reischauer be appointed a Special Assistant to the Secretary of State (or Ambassador-at-Large), with responsibility for China operations coordination and China policy planning.
As you know, Ed Reischauer plans to leave his Tokyo post this summer for a new chair at Harvard; he intends to announce his resignation in April.
What I am proposing is that Ed be asked to postpone his departure from Government for at least one year in order to serve, in effect, as “Ambassador to Peking in Exile.” From what I know of his long and deep [Page 250] concern with the China problem, I regard the odds as better than even that he would accept such an assignment.
2. Rationale
There seems to me a clear and compelling need for such a figure at State. Our highest-placed full-time China expert in Washington is currently Allen Whiting of INR, who will probably move either to an overseas post or a university this summer. Within FE there is no one of deeply rooted China experience above the rank of Office Director (Harald Jacobson, who runs Asian Communist Affairs; an exception is Bob Barnett, whose job as economic Deputy provides little opportunity for China planning). Nor is there anyone on the Seventh Floor who would claim China expertise, much less time for intensive China thinking. This leaves only the handful of high-level China types abroad and in other agencies: [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] and Ray Cline of the Agency (the one now in [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] and the other apparently scheduled for reassignment); Marshall Green in Djakarta; and Ed Rice in Hong Kong—a very thoughtful observer and analyst, but not an operator or planner.
What we are confronting here is a shortage and generation gap produced by the sealing off of the mainland, McCarthyism, and the Dulles-Robertson years. There are wise and tough younger China specialists coming along in the Service; but the Tommy Thompsons, Chip Bohlens, and Foy Kohlers simply don’t exist as yet.
In the circumstances, with China a permanent problem, and with no U.S. diplomatic mission in Peking, we are in some danger of succumbing in Washington to at least three types of unavoidable distortion in conducting a Far Eastern policy. There is the distortion bred by our own China experience (the “loss of China”, Korean war, public and Congressional opinion, etc.); the Southeast Asian distortion (a narrowly Saigon or Bangkok perspective on China); and finally the Soviet distortion (a Kremlinological view of China that may be shaped both by the demands of our “détente” with the USSR and by Moscow’s own distorted view of Peking).
In addition to whatever distortions may color our approach, we are also endangered by the fragmentation of our present China operations. By this I refer to the considerable number and variety of intelligence-type mechanisms that have been set in motion over the past fifteen years on China’s frontiers and are now compounded by our Vietnam-related activities. There is no one in Government at a senior policy level who has within his daily ken the full sweep of our China activities from Tibet through Southeast Asia, North Vietnam, the Taiwan Straits, and Korea—not to mention matters of travel and trade. Such a review point is particularly important to the extent that however much we may regard China as a series of separate problems (i.e., Tibetan rebels, KMT irregulars, over-flights fro [Page 251] m Taiwan, medical travel, etc.), China regards us as one single problem—and is highly sensitized to all the “signals” we may inadvertently be sending through a variety of unrelated acts.
Ideally, what is needed is a China coordinator and China advocate of the stature of Tommy Thomson. Ideally, too, such a man should come from the career Service and should be unscathed by the McCarthy era. I have combed the ranks of the career Service, however, and although there are some vaguely promising names (perhaps Henry Byroade or Fulton Freeman), none seems to me more logical than that of Reischauer. Ed is a man whose roots, training, experience, and thinking cover China as well as Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia; his first and foremost field of scholarship was pre-modern China (T’ang history), and he has applied himself both as an academic and as an operator to modern and Communist China, also to the broad questions of U.S.-China strategy. In addition, he has clearly earned his spurs within the FSO Club and in his press, public, and Congressional relations. Finally, his standing with both Defense and the CIA is uncommonly high.
I am convinced that Ed could be persuaded to put off his Harvard chair for at least one year and take on such an assignment—provided that the Administration made it clear that his services were needed. If he were appointed, I would urge, for obvious reasons, that his role be publicly described as that of a general adviser on Far Eastern affairs—not a China watcher.2
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Name File, Thomson. Secret. Filed as an attachment to a February 6 memorandum from McGeorge Bundy to William Bundy, endorsing Thomson’s suggestion and stating that if he went to Saigon and if the idea was attractive to Bundy and the Seventh Floor, he might go to Tokyo and “try it out on Reischauer.”↩
- A March 19 letter from William Bundy to Reischauer states that Rusk shared Bundy’s feeling that it would be difficult to devise a position that would make full use of Reischauer’s talents. Whereas Thompson was constantly involved with immediate policy problems and direct dealings with the Soviets, a comparable job concerning China would not have the practical immediate high-level decisions or contacts at the same frequency. (Department of State, Bundy Files: Lot 85 D 240, Ambassador’s Private Correspondence)↩