Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXX, China

90. 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, June 29, 1965.

SUBJECT

• China Travel Problem

In the event that State’s China travel paper² (which I have not seen but have heard about) is raised at your luncheon with the President today, the following points seem to me pertinent:

1. The current proposal that we permit doctors and public health specialists to travel to Communist China is irrelevant and inadequate. It is irrelevant because we have had only two requests in the past several years for validated passports from such types (from Paul Dudley White and the famous ear specialist). In both cases the ChiComs have refused visas. State’s proposal is inadequate because it fails to meet our basic 2-fold need on this subject: to shift the onus to the Chinese dramatically, and once and for all, for obstinacy, rigidity and self-isolation; and to be responsive to persistent pressure from bona fide American scholars who for years have patiently accepted State’s assurance that the travel ban will be shortly lifted. (These scholars have been very cooperative, but their cooperation has predictable limits.)

2. State’s proposal that we give the Chinese at Warsaw tomorrow a preview of this mouse makes no sense. The Chinese reaction is utterly predictable (they will reject the idea as a pure propaganda ploy). Furthermore, State’s request for Presidential decision on this matter today creates a false sense of urgency on a subject whose full dimensions should receive unhurried Presidential consideration.

For your information. Abba Schwartz, Meeker, and the FE specialists all favor a considerably broader lifting of the travel ban for scholars, scientists and journalists to Red China and Albania. In my view, it would be far better procedure to defer any Presidential action on the present proposal until State can present the President with the full travel picture, including alternatives which the 7th floor has rejected.

Jim

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, China, Vol. III. Confidential. A handwritten notation on the source text reads: “Staff mtg Fri. McGB.”
2. Reference is to a June 28 memorandum from Rusk to the President that recommended adding a new category, medical doctors and public health specialists, to the existing categories of Americans entitled to receive passports valid for Communist China and stated that if the President approved, Rusk proposed to instruct Cabot to mention it at the June 30 Warsaw meeting. It is filed as an attachment to a June 28 memorandum from Bundy to the President with an agenda for his Tuesday lunch meeting with his top advisers. (Ibid., Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy)