93. Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Green) to Chester Cooper and James C. Thomson, Jr., of the National Security Council Staff1
A personal disappointment in leaving FE after almost two years has been our inability over that period of time to strengthen and modernize our China policy by lifting restrictions on travel of Americans to Communist China and by taking certain other measures such as easing the administrative application of FAC controls and recognizing Mongolia. We were unable even to include in our last Warsaw instruction the limited suggestion of informing the Chinese representative that we would be authorizing travel of American medical and public health officials to mainland China. This was a small step in the right direction, although it fell far short of what I hoped would be our position by 1965.
Attached is a talking paper which Lindsey Grant and I prepared almost two years ago providing the argumentation on liberalization of travel regulations governing American citizens.2 Those arguments are just as valid today although I appreciate that the intensified war in Viet-Nam [Page 183] might make it difficult to liberalize travel to North Viet-Nam and possibly to North Korea. But why not Communist China?
Over the past four years, both in Hong Kong and in Washington, I have spoken to many members of Congress and the press and have given hundreds of speeches and briefings. Oftentimes the subject of taking new initiatives on travel and recognition of Outer Mongolia has arisen and I have not heard one voice raised in dissent when this issue has been discussed. On the contrary, I feel that the overwhelming opinion amongst our countrymen is in favor of doing that which broadly advertises our freedom and our confidence and of dramatizing Peiping’s self-isolation. Clearly the liberalization of our policies, taken at the very moment we are showing toughness in Viet-Nam, would not be misunderstood. It would be widely applauded in the U.S. and elsewhere. And it would do much to cope with criticisms in our scholarly community of US policies in Asia.
I feel that this is a real opportunity for the Johnson administration.