98. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1
Washington, August 24, 1965, 9:45 a.m.
SUBJECT
- Paul Dudley White and Mainland China
- 1.
- Last week you sent me for comment a letter from White2 in which he offered his services in any way that might be useful “in helping to break our deadlock with China.”
- 2.
- It turns out that Dr. White has had a long interest in this problem! He was invited to China by the President of the Chinese Academy of Medicine in July 1962. The Department of State agreed to his visit, but at the last minute the Chinese withdrew their invitation on the ground that the U.S. “has persistently adopted a reactionary policy against New China, and blockaded every possible channel of communication between the peoples of our two countries.”
- 3.
- This is a characteristic example of the way in which the Red Chinese have tried to pin on us a responsibility which is really their own. I bet that 80% of those interested in the problem think that the reason more Americans cannot go to Red China is U.S. intransigence—while the fact is that it is mainly the Red Chinese themselves who have prevented such travel.
- 4.
- Under our own current policy guidelines, I know of no way we can use Dr. White at this time. If we were to give official backing to a White visit to China, it is predictable that the Red Chinese would turn it down. This would not gain us much.
- 5.
- On the other hand, the White case does raise the question whether we are smart to let it appear that we are the people who block communication between our two countries. Our Chinese experts have recommended for some time that we should ease our present travel restrictions and make a general rule that doctors and public health specialists—or perhaps all workers in the fields of health, education, and welfare—would be authorized to receive visas. (Our present rule includes (1) authorized news correspondents, (2) families of the four imprisoned Americans, and (3) individual cases in which the national interest is served—Dr. White’s visit would have come under this third category.)
- 6.
- We discussed this matter at a Tuesday luncheon earlier this winter [summer?],3 and you felt then that it would not be wise to change our current policy. But perhaps if we were to change it in response to an appeal by Paul Dudley White—and at a time when our policy in Vietnam has reached a new level of clarity and firmness—we might make a useful stroke in all directions. I will put this matter on the agenda for our next Rusk/McNamara meeting.4 Meanwhile, I have given Dr. White a cordial interim acknowledgment, as attached,5 and protected your right to answer him yourself when you are ready.
McG. B.
6
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 13. No classification marking.↩
- Dated August 10; attached but not printed.↩
- See Document 90.↩
- A September 2 memorandum from Thomson to Bundy states that a proposal on modified travel restrictions had been on Rusk’s desk for several days and that Rusk reportedly had doubts about its “breadth” and would probably avoid action for a while. Thomson asked Bundy whether the attached proposal conformed with Bundy’s “understanding of what the President authorized” and whether they could do anything to encourage faster action. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, China, Vol. IV) A September 8 memorandum from Thomson to Bundy attached a new draft Department of State memorandum to Rusk and noted that it was “an outgrowth of your phone call to Ben Read last Friday.” (Ibid.)↩
- Dated August 24; attached but not printed.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.↩