Download Eisenhower`s nuclear policy toward China during the first Quemoy

Honors Theses
Fall 2011
Eisenhower's nuclear policy toward China during
the first Quemoy and Matsu crisis, September
1954-April 1955
Thomas D. Friedenbach
Penrose Library, Whitman College
Permanent URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10349/1014
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History
EISENHOWER‘S NUCLEAR POLICY TOWARD CHINA
DURING THE FIRST QUEMOY AND MATSU CRISIS,
SEPTEMBER 1954-APRIL 1955
by
Thomas D. Friedenbach
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for graduation with Honors in History.
Whitman College
2011
Certificate of Approval
This is to certify that the accompanying thesis by Thomas D. Friedenbach has been
accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in History.
_________________________________
David F. Schmitz
Robert Allen Skotheim Chair of History
Whitman College
May 11, 2011
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Table of Contents
Map of Quemoy and Related Areas .................................................................................... 1
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 2
Chapter 1: Understanding the New Look ......................................................................... 12
The Truman Administration and Early U.S. Cold War Policy .................................. 13
Eisenhower and the New Look .................................................................................. 24
Chapter 2: September-December, 1954 ............................................................................ 33
The Crisis Begins ....................................................................................................... 34
Oracle ......................................................................................................................... 38
Chapter 3: January-February, 1955................................................................................... 48
A New Strategy .......................................................................................................... 48
Chapter 4: March-April, 1955........................................................................................... 73
Flexibility Ends .......................................................................................................... 74
Understanding the Nuclear Decision: When, Why and How to Attack ..................... 79
Understanding the Nuclear Decision: The Public Announcement............................. 84
The Crisis Ends .......................................................................................................... 90
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 99
Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 106
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Map of Quemoy and Related Areas
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, ―The Chinese Offshore Islands,‖ report no. 50318,
September 8, 1954, International Series: Ann Whitman File, Dwight David Eisenhower
Presidential Library, Abilene, KS.
Introduction
On September 3, 1954 the People‘s Republic of China (P.R.C.) began a heavy
artillery campaign against Quemoy Island a few miles off the Chinese mainland. The
campaign was part of a broader territorial dispute over Taiwan and the Nationalist
controlled Quemoy, Matsu, and the Tachen island group. Contextualized by P.R.C.
Premier Chou En-lai‘s campaign to ―Liberate Taiwan,‖ the bombardment appeared to
signal the start of a major conflict between Communist and Nationalist China. With the
Republic of China‘s (R.O.C.) survival in jeopardy, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
needed to decide if, how, and when to defend Taiwan. The crisis, which continued
through April 1955, resulted in three public U.S. responses: the Sino-American Mutual
Defense Treaty, which committed the United States to defending Taiwan and the
Pescadores but not the out-laying islands which spurred the dispute; the Formosa
Resolution, which authorized President Eisenhower to use ―the armed forces of the
United States‖ to protect Taiwan and ―related positions and territories‖ in case of attack
by China; and finally, public statements by the president, Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Robert B. Carney that the United States
would be willing to use nuclear weapons to end the crisis. Whether the result of
successful deterrence or internal decision making, the P.R.C. announced a willingness to
negotiate shortly after the public pronouncements on nuclear use and ceased all shelling
operations on May 1, 1955.
For the most part, scholars have used the New Look doctrine – Eisenhower‘s
overarching Cold War strategy which emphasized nuclear weapons and massive
retaliation as a cheap alternative to conventional weapons for maintaining credible
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American power preponderance – to explain Eisenhower‘s navigation of the QuemoyMatsu crisis.1 Explained best by John Lewis Gaddis, this interpretation holds that the
Eisenhower administration saw maintenance of the Quemoy and Matsu islands as
essential to anti-communist morale throughout the Asia-Pacific region. A U.S. decision to
abandon the islands to the Chinese communists would rattle faith in Washington‘s
willingness to defend its allies from Soviet and communist expansion. Given the
geographical constraints presented by the islands‘ proximity to the mainland and the
Chinese communists‘ ardent refusal to back down, Eisenhower ruled out a strictly
conventional response as unfeasible. In order to deter Mao from escalating his shelling
operation, Eisenhower issued a nuclear threat in line with the principle of massive
retaliation in hope of diffusing the situation. Early scholars examining Eisenhower‘s
policy saw these threats as a testament to the genius of massive retaliation – without
explicitly committing the United States to nuclear weapons use, Eisenhower successfully
secured a ceasefire from the Chinese communists;2 later scholars – Gaddis included –
decried the nuclear threat as unnecessarily risking nuclear escalation for the risky
prospect of deterrence.3 Despite their disagreements over assessment, both sides in these
scholarly debates have placed the emphasis on New Look policy‘s deterrent intention.
This thesis will argue against that interpretation as an oversimplification.
Eisenhower‘s decision to threaten the Chinese Communists with nuclear weapons
1
For a few examples of this interpretation see Robert A. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1981). 33-39, 55-66; John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A
Critical Appraisal of Postwar National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).168172; Robert Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment: United States Policy Toward Taiwan, 1950-1955 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1996). 214-219; H. W. Brands Jr. ―Testing Massive Retaliation:
Credibility and Crisis Management in the Taiwan Strait,‖ International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring, 1988):
124-151.
2
Divine, 64.
3
Gaddis, 168; Accinelli 230-235; Brands, 150-151.
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evolved from the combination of a perceived inability to resolve the crisis and a belief in
the inevitability of a U.S.-China war. From September to February, Eisenhower and
Dulles followed the guidelines of the New Look doctrine by issuing generalized threats to
the Chinese while pursuing a peaceful end to the crisis through the United Nations. The
intent in those months was to approach the situation with a degree of flexibility; by not
committing to a definitive course of action, the president could leave his options open. In
early March, after an extended diplomatic tour of Asia, Dulles concluded that the policy
of flexibility had failed and that the Chinese Communists had no intentions of backing
down. Dulles‘s March assessment of the situation persuaded American decision makers
that the offshore islands crisis would invariably culminate in a war between the United
States and the People‘s Republic of China. From a strictly military point of view,
Eisenhower and other administration officials decided that such a war would necessarily
involve tactical nuclear weapons. Worried about the political consequences of a
preemptive nuclear first strike against China, Eisenhower and Dulles issued a series of
statements, interpreted as threats, designed to prepare domestic and international public
opinion for the initiation of a nuclear war. In short, Eisenhower‘s nuclear policy during
the first Quemoy-Matsu crisis stemmed from a combination of the belief that atomic
weapons would be necessary to defeat China and political concerns regarding the
ramifications of a nuclear first strike.
Whatever his motivations, the president‘s decision making during this crisis had
profound effects on U.S.-China policy and American nuclear policy. Eisenhower‘s
decision to threaten China with atomic war over a series of small islands set the tone for
U.S.-China relations until Richard Nixon‘s diplomatic visit in 1972. More significantly,
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Eisenhower established ―determined ambiguity‖ as the guiding doctrine for U.S.-Taiwan
policy, a policy which continues to this day. In China, U.S. nuclear threats encouraged
Mao Zedong to conceive of nuclear weapons as ―paper tigers‖ used to bully non-nuclear
weapons states. Those attitudes encouraged Chinese nuclear proliferation and
emboldened reckless crisis behavior during subsequent flare-ups over Taiwan and the
Sino-Soviet border. On the domestic nuclear front, Eisenhower‘s navigation of the crisis
firmly established massive retaliation as a means of crisis management and influenced a
generation of nuclear policy planners and strategists.
Despite its importance for U.S. foreign and security policy, few scholars have
undertaken serious analyses of the crisis. Prior to the 1980s, only a handful of
individuals gave the crisis much thought. For the most part, what articles were written fit
snugly within the traditional interpretation of Eisenhower as a politically inept president
unwilling to make difficult decisions.4 Interviews by John Foster Dulles provided most
of the basis for these interpretations. Dulles dramatically overstated his own role in the
crisis and applauded his own adeptness at brinksmanship. James Shepley‘s 1956
interpretation in Life outlined an early but emblematic version of this narrative.5
Assuming Dulles‘s primary role in the Eisenhower administration‘s decision making,
Shepley examined Dulles‘s thoughts on deterrence and conflict. He concluded that
Dulles‘s refusal to back down and willingness to threaten massive retaliation during the
Korean War, the Indo-China crisis, and the Quemoy and Matsu crisis successfully
averted catastrophe. By making explicit threats to unleash unacceptable damage against
4
This narrative goes that Eisenhower more or less delegated all of his presidential power to his advisors,
most notable John Foster Dulles. For a picture of this narrative see: John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A
Political Memoir of the Eisenhower Years (New York: Macmillan, 1976); Arthur M. Schlesinger, ―Our
Presidents: A Rating by 75 Historians,‖ New York Times (July 29, 1962): 40-41.
5
James Shepley, ―How Dulles Averted War: Three Times, New Disclosures show, he brought U.S. back
from the brink,‖ Life 16 (Jan. 1956): 70-80.
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U.S. enemies, Dulles successfully dissuaded Communist aggressors from escalating
conflicts. Though Shepley did not explicitly attack Eisenhower as a decision maker, the
credit he assigned to Dulles diminished the importance of Eisenhower‘s leadership.
In the 1980s, as new documents came to light regarding the Eisenhower
administration's foreign policy decisions, a new genre of Eisenhower scholarship
emerged. Embodied in Robert Divine's account, this literature questioned the traditional
picture of the Eisenhower decision making process.6 Rather than depicting an indecisive
president who preferred delegation, these scholars painted a picture of Eisenhower as a
skilled statesman, carefully considering his advisers' advice but ultimately making his
own decisions. Citing recently declassified National Security Council (NSC) documents,
revisionists correctly pointed out that it was Eisenhower, not Dulles, who made the final
call on foreign policy decisions. Despite their vital reinterpretation of the Eisenhower‘s
decision making process, these earliest revisionists made relatively limited contributions
to a nuanced understanding of the first Quemoy-Matsu crisis itself.
Overwhelmed by the volume of information suddenly available, early revisionist
interpretations focused primarily on Eisenhower's relationship with his advisers during
the crisis without careful consideration of the outcomes and implications of the decisions
made. Divine, Richard Saunders and Stephen E. Ambrose applauded Eisenhower for
restraining the escalatory impulses of Dulles, Admiral Arthur W. Radford and other
hawks within his staff. In their focus on the restraint exercised in the face of war
pressures, these narratives did not give consideration to other possible options
Eisenhower could have pursued. Emphasizing the peaceful end of the crisis and the
maneuvering room made available by Eisenhower‘s ambiguity, these accounts
6. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War.
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characterized Eisenhower‘s contributions to U.S. foreign policy as primarily negative in
nature: Eisenhower‘s strengths lay not in what he did, but what he did not do.7
Later revisionists, however, delved beyond the decision making process and
reached four main conclusions about the events. First, revisionists pointed to the New
Look doctrine, which emphasized nuclear weapons as a cheap alternative to conventional
weapons for maintaining credible American power preponderance, as the source of the
president's nuclear decision. Typified by H.W. Brand's article, "Testing Massive
Retaliation," these scholars argued that in the aftermath of the Korean War and the
French loss of Indo-China, Eisenhower desperately needed to reaffirm American
commitment to, and strength in, East Asia.8 These studies found the administration's
policy to be more a show of strength than a genuine commitment to defend the islands.
With this in mind, revisionists interpreted the frequent arguments made by Eisenhower at
NSC meetings about the psychological damage of abandoning Quemoy and Matsu as
directed at the region broadly, rather than toward Nationalist China alone.
Second, revisionists rejected the significance of Congress in making the Quemoy
and Matsu decision. This account, best articulated by Robert Accinelli‘s book, Crisis and
Commitment, pointed out Eisenhower‘s persistent dismissiveness of staunch ROC
defenders like Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson and Representative William F.
Knowland during NSC meetings.9 Similarly, these scholars noted the overwhelming
7
Ibid., 154. Richard M. Saunders, ―Military Force in the Foreign Policy of the Eisenhower Presidency,‖
Political Science Quarterly 100, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 97-116; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The
President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
8. Brands, ―Testing Massive Retaliation.‖
9. Accinelli. Much of Accinelli‘s argument about Eisenhower‘s navigation of the Quemoy-Matsu crisis
first appeared in his 1990 article: Robert Accinelli, ―Eisenhower, Congress and the 1954-55 Offshore
Islands Crisis,‖ Presidential Studies Quarterly 20 (Spring 2990): 329-348.
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emphasis on regional security concerns in the meeting room and concluded that
congressional decision makers had relatively little to do with Eisenhower's decision.
Third, concordant with their emphasis on the New Look doctrine, these scholars
argued that Eisenhower‘s decision to threaten to use nuclear weapons stemmed primarily
from a profound understanding of deterrence. Articulated best by John Lewis Gaddis,
this claim held that the administration used nuclear weapons to force negotiations and
avoid conflict.10 Gaddis pointed out Eisenhower's public commitments to arms control
and his private Clausewitzean reservations about nuclear escalation and its catastrophic
effects. Some years after Gaddis's original account, Campbell Craig took this argument
further; Craig argued that Eisenhower deliberately emphasized rapid nuclear escalation to
reign in his advisers.11 When confronted with the horror of immediate, full-scale nuclear
escalation, Dulles and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) tended to search for less-aggressive
options. Although none of these accounts explicitly denied the possibility of nuclear use
during the Eisenhower administration, these scholars argued that Eisenhower did not
consider nuclear weapons a primary war-fighting tool.
Finally, in contrast to early revisionists, late revisionists gave mixed to negative
evaluations of Eisenhower's navigation of the crisis. Despite applauding the president for
avoiding war, they pointed out that the mutual defense treaty that emerged from the crisis
put the administration in a particularly difficult position when tensions flared again in
1958. Similarly, they observed that despite avoiding war, the administration achieved at
best a stalemate, with almost no results emerging from subsequent negotiations. Finally,
they noted Chinese Nationalist President Chiang-Kai-Shek's increasingly reckless
10. Gaddis.
11. Craig Campbell, Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998).
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behavior regarding the islands in the crisis's wake, including the maintenance of a large
and provocative troop presence on the islands.
Post-revisionists such as Robert McMahon and Blanche Wiesen Cook criticized
Eisenhower for confusing nationalism with communism and for committing the United
States to dictators who often worked counter to U.S. interests.12 Despite McMahon's and
Cook's early departure from revisionist scholarship, post-revisionist scholarship has only
recently articulated a position on the Quemoy and Matsu crisis. For the most part, these
post-revisionist works have questioned the revisionist position on Eisenhower‘s views of
deterrence. Michael Gordon Jackson's article on Korea, which made brief arguments
about the Quemoy-Matsu crisis, embodied this stance by arguing that Eisenhower and
Dulles, despite their public rhetoric to the counter, considered nuclear weapons as warfighting tools.13 Although the administration exercised these tools with caution, they
nonetheless found them fully useable. Other post-revisionists like David Tal have more
broadly questioned all of Eisenhower‘s public commitment to nuclear peace and
disarmament.14 Tal argued that Eisenhower‘s disarmament initiatives like Atoms for
Peace served dubious political intentions. Not a genuine advocate for peace, Eisenhower
promoted peace initiatives to improve the U.S. image vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. While
not explicitly mentioning Quemoy and Matsu, Tal‘s argument called into question the
assumptions behind the revisionist contention that Eisenhower would not actually have
initiated nuclear war.
12. Robert J. McMahon, ―Eisenhower and Third World Nationalism: A Critique of the Revisionists,‖
Political Science Quarterly 101, no. 3 (1986): 453-473. Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified
Eisenhower (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1981).
13. Michael Gordon Jackson, ―Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea,
1953-1968,‖ Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Mar. 2005): 52-75.
14
David Tal, The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945-1963 (New York: Syracuse University
Press, 2008).
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Despite this most recent wave of revisionism, scholars remain convinced in the
importance of the New Look doctrine in shaping Eisenhower‘s navigation of the
Quemoy-Matsu crisis. This interpretation, besides incorrectly understanding the
motivations for the nuclear threat, places the focus of scholarship on identifying
overarching tendencies in the Eisenhower administration rather than coming to terms
with the unique aspects of the Quemoy-Mastu dispute. Instead a decision motivated by a
desire to cheaply deter the Chinese, Eisenhower‘s nuclear policy during the first
Quemoy-Matsu crisis stemmed from a tactical-military belief in the necessity of atomic
weapons in defeating a Chinese assault on Taiwan. Despite originally approaching the
crisis with the intention of negotiating a settlement with the Chinese communists,
Eisenhower‘s assessment of the situation changed as his diplomatic efforts consistently
failed. By March, when his administration issued the nuclear threat, Eisenhower thought
a war with the Chinese inevitable and hoped that announcing a willingness to use nuclear
weapons would prime the American and Western public for the possibility of a second
Hiroshima.
Given the importance scholars have placed on the New Look doctrine, chapter 1
will explore the context and purposes of that doctrine. The New Look policy developed
as a general guiding principle to reduce Truman-era defense expenditures without
diminishing the power of containment. It was not intended to guide the administration in
managing international crises. Chapter 2 will delve into the administration‘s early
thinking about the crisis from September through December of 1954. During these
months the administration approached the Chinese through standard diplomatic channels
and attempted to dispel the conflict through conventional means. The escalation of the
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crisis by the Chinese in January and February 1955 and the Eisenhower administration‘s
conclusion that diplomacy alone would not suffice will be analyzed in the third chapter.
Chapter 4 examines the critical decisions in March and April, 1955 when the
administration saw diplomacy as futile and explored options for defeating China should
the C.C.P. initiate an assault on Taiwan. The conclusion will compare findings in this
thesis to those of other scholars concerning the role of the New Look and the president‘s
willingness to use nuclear weapons, and critically asses the president‘s handling of the
Quemoy and Matsu crisis using the analytic tools provided by revisionists like Robert
McMahon and Blanche Wiesen Cook, noting that the illusion of flexibility provided by
the New Look doctrine placed the president in a precarious position when it became
apparent to administration officials that the United States faced an unrelenting aggressor.
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Chapter 1: Understanding the New Look
On 11 February 1953, President Eisenhower opened his meeting with the National
Security Council with an explanation of the Truman-era National Security Council Policy
141 (NSC 141).1 The policy in question was a recapitulation of the Truman
administration‘s assessment of the Soviet Union, designed to guide the incoming
Eisenhower administration in security policy. In terms of content, NSC 141 deemed
existing American capabilities inadequate to meet the Soviet threat. It uncompromisingly
examined the interlocking logic of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, Asia, and
Europe, recommending bolstered local forces in all three regions and the initiation of a
large-scale civil defense program. In addition, the policy called for a varied and flexible
approach capable of foreclosing the possibility of a Soviet first strike that would disable
the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Notably, NSC 141 did not include a cost projection for the
proposed changes.2
Eisenhower summarized the importance of NSC 141 as twofold. On the one
hand, the president believed that the document accurately mapped the theater of Soviet
containment as global. On the other hand, the authors of NSC 141 drafted the policy on
their way out of office, from which Eisenhower concluded that those authors had ―no
personal interest in having [NSC 141‘s] proposals adopted.‖3 In other words, despite
correctly identifying the problem, NSC 141 offered unrealistic solutions. His
administration, therefore, faced the task of ―discover[ing] a reasonable and respectable
1
Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United Sates: 1952-1954, vol 2. (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office). 236. (Hereafter FRUS followed by year and volume).
2
Gaddis, 121-123.
3
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol 2. 236.
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posture of defense . . . without bankrupting the nation.‖4 The general solution to that
problem came in National Security Council Policy 162/2 (NSC 162/2) on 30 October
1953. Otherwise known as the New Look policy, NSC 162/2 outlined the direction of
American national security policy in a way designed to maximize power projection at
minimal cost.
In refuting the importance placed on the New Look doctrine in contemporary
scholarship, understanding the details of that policy proves essential. This chapter will
therefore examine the factors which led up to the New Look policy and the purpose of the
New Look doctrine. After deciding to emphasize nuclear weapons as a means to reduce
defense expenditures, Eisenhower faced a number of questions regarding when and how
to use nuclear weapons. Worried about overcommitting or repeating the same mistakes
as the Truman administration, however, the president choose to leave nuclear questions
unresolved. By not settling on predetermined rules for how to manage specific
challenges to American power, President Eisenhower hoped to afford himself flexibility
when an actual crisis arose. The New Look doctrine thus was intended to outline a
general means for reducing defense expenditures without compromising the strategy of
containment. It did not provide guidance to the administration in managing international
crises, nor did it intend to dictate how and when the United States would use its nuclear
assets.
The Truman Administration and Early U.S. Cold War Policy
Harry S. Truman‘s final term as president was characterized by the redefinition of
American national security in global terms. In the wake of World War II, Truman had to
4
Ibid.
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design a national policy that confronted the new realities of the atomic age and of
America‘s newly earned superpower status. Concordant with the changing balance of
power, Truman needed to define U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. After a lengthy
series of debates, this redefinition centered on a policy of containment designed for
holding Soviet expansion at bay on all fronts.
Truman found himself thrust into office in 1945 without the expertise or grasp of
foreign policy possessed by his predecessor. By most scholarly accounts, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt approached foreign policy with a domineering style, leaving his
advisors uninformed about his thinking on foreign policy issues.5 As a result, Truman
entered the presidency without a clear understanding of Roosevelt‘s Soviet strategy.6 For
the early years of his presidency, he attempted to implement what he thought to be
Roosevelt‘s quid-pro-quo strategy of leveraging specific U.S. advantages such as
economic aid through the Lend-Lease program and publicity by calling international
attention to instances of Soviet unilateralism. Each of these attempts failed due to an
acute overestimation of the leverage power possessed by the administration.7 Unable to
successfully implement the quid-pro-quo policy, President Truman sought out other
options for dealing with the Soviets.
In February 1946, Truman found the basis of his new strategy. An 8,000 word
telegram written by a career diplomat in Moscow named George Kennan called for a
redefinition of U.S.-Soviet relations along substantially more hostile lines. Kennan wrote
the so-called ―long telegram‖ to explain the increasing prominence of anti-Western
statements in speeches by Soviet leaders. Kennan explained that the basis of U.S.-Soviet
5
Dockrill, 11-12.
Gaddis, 15.
7
Ibid., 16-18.
6
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policy under Roosevelt had incorrectly assumed a degree of diplomatic and policy
similarity between the Soviets and the Americans. Roosevelt had mistakenly understood
Stalin‘s hostility toward the United States as a product of external threats which
diplomacy could remedy.8 In reality, that hostility arose from the nature of Soviet
governance. Unable to govern through the usual means of Western democracy, the
Soviets relied on repression which in turn necessitated an enemy in whose name the
Soviets could justify their political tactics. The nature and content of Marxist dogma
made the United States an easy target and useful scapegoat.9 In other words, the Soviet
Union had undergirded its legitimacy with the existence of an external threat.
Consequently, renouncing the national rivalry with the United States would undermine
and limit the Soviet government‘s power. From these premises, Kennan concluded that
the differences between the United States and the U.S.S.R. were irresolvable. The Soviet
Union, Kennan summarized, was ―a political force committed fanatically to the belief
that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi.‖
Kennan‘s long telegram did not make many concrete recommendations for
changes to U.S. Soviet policy. Even so, Washington‘s inability to induce the desired
results from a quid-pro-quo strategy made the Truman administration amenable to a
revaluation of Soviet intentions and goals. Truman and his advisors seized upon
Kennan‘s telegram and began implementing a new strategy for U.S.-Soviet relations.
The basics of the new strategy, characterized by Truman‘s secretary of state James F.
Byrnes as a policy of ―patience and firmness,‖ showed the beginnings of the containment
strategy commonly associated with the early Cold War. In John Lewis Gaddis‘s analysis,
8
Gaddis, 18-23.
Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of
Liberal Internationalism (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006). 33-34.
9
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this strategy involved four essential tenets. First, the United States would openly express
its disagreements with Russia as non-provocatively as possible; second, the United States
would no longer make concessions to the U.S.S.R. on issues of Soviet expansion; third,
the administration would seriously consider requests for military and economic aid made
by allies; and finally, U.S. negotiations with the Soviet union would continue ―only for
the purpose of registering Moscow‘s acceptance of American positions or of publicizing
Soviet intransigence in order to win allies abroad.‖10
Despite the change in attitude, Truman‘s intentions continued to resemble those of
the quid-pro-quo strategy. By taking a firm stance against Soviet expansion and refusing
any form of cooperation, Truman hoped to induce Soviet malleability in the face of
Western demands.11 In other words, Truman hoped that firmness would give the United
States more leverage over the Soviet Union. Through 1946 and 1947, Truman worked to
implement his new strategy globally. In the Near East, Truman induced the U.S.S.R. to
withdraw troops from Iran, stationed the sixth fleet to patrol the Mediterranean, and made
vague defense commitments to Greece and Turkey; in Europe, the United States ended
reparations shipments to Germany and consolidated its zone in Germany with the British
and French zones, forcing Russia‘s hand in negotiations; and, in East Asia, Truman
adamantly opposed Russian occupation of Japan and resisted Soviet efforts to foster a
communist regime in Korea under Kim Il-Sung.12 To undertake these policies, Congress
established the National Security Council (NSC), intended to keep him informed about
international affairs and to aid his decision making in foreign policy.13 These policies and
10
Gaddis, 21.
Ibid., 22.
12
Ibid.
13
Dockrill, 12.
11
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the body created to undertake them signaled not only a harder line against the Soviet
Union, but also a major shift in U.S. foreign policy thinking. By making it the mission of
U.S. foreign policy to prevent Russian expansion in any corner of the globe, Truman
transformed U.S. national security into a world-wide affair.
But precisely as Truman established such broad goals, his means to undertake
them began markedly diminishing. At the end of the war, U.S. troop totals stood at 12
million; by mid-1946 they had plummeted to 3 million – a number halved again within
the year. Defense expenditures also halved between 1945 and 1946, falling from $83
billion to $42.7 billion. By 1947, the defense budget constituted only $12.8 billion.
More tellingly, in 1946 an economically-focused Republican Congress entered office and
showed no signs of expanding the budget.14 By 1947, the means by which the United
States intended to continue its policy of ―patience and firmness‖ seemed unclear.
Truman would have to craft another strategy better suited to his material limitations.
George Kennan, who in the months subsequent to his telegram had advanced
from career diplomat in Moscow to chief policy advisor in Washington, again came to
the policy fore by designing the policy of containment. This strategy involved
establishing strong American influence in a perimeter around areas under Soviet
influence to prevent any instance of Soviet expansion. Kennan assessed that, despite
ideological statements indicating the counter, Soviet leaders could not risk an actual war
in order to attain their desired policy goals. With an economy and population still reeling
from World War II, the Soviets simply could not withstand another conflict.15 The Soviet
challenge to American power preponderance was therefore primarily psychological.
14
15
Gaddis, 23.
Ibid., 32-35.
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Populations in Europe and Asia, demoralized by the realities and aftermaths of World
War II, might eventually find themselves swayed by communist ideology and abandon
any potential support for the United States.16 The best means for defending against the
psychological influence of the Soviets involved ―strengthening . . . the natural forces of
resistance within the respective countries‖ under communist assault.17 In other words,
Kennan proposed that the United States offer financial and other assistance to anticommunist and pro-U.S. groups in Europe and Asia. Well-funded grass-roots
movements could effectively resist the rise of communist political forces through normal
electoral means.
Beyond financial assistance, Kennan intended to undercut Soviet expansionism by
exploiting fissures within the communist line. By indirectly encouraging Titoism and
other unorthodox Marxist ideologies in Eastern Europe and maintaining troop presences
in border countries, Kennan hoped to minimize Soviet control over Eastern Europe and
other nations unfortunately won over by Communism.18 Kennan also hoped that the
presence of minimal American troops in non-communist countries in third world border
nations would spark a feud between the Third Internationale and the Soviet Union.
Unwilling to risk a military confrontation with the United States over small border states,
the Soviet Union would have to cut back its military and economic assistance to
communist radicals in the Third World who might inadvertently spark conflict with
American soldiers. Resistance from the Soviet Union regarding regional communist
developments would ideally create resentment in local communist groups that would
either foreclose the rise of communism in third world states or give rise to alternate
16
Ibid., 34-49.
Kennan, quoted in Gaddis, 36.
18
Gaddis, 42-44.
17
-18-
modes of communist ideology like Titoism.19 The widening of these fractures would
drive Soviet allies away from the U.S.S.R. and weaken the Soviet position
internationally.
But in the years following the development of the containment strategy, the Cold
War escalated rapidly. Despite the Truman administration‘s best efforts the communist
threat continued unabated. During 1949 and 1950 the U.S.S.R. tested its first atomic
bomb, Germany officially split in two, and Mao Zedong led the communists to victory in
China. For the Truman administration, Kennan‘s general strategy remained viable, but
given the rising intensity of the communist threat, its means would require reevaluation.
In 1949, the United States solidified and bolstered its commitment to ―natural forces of
resistance‖ in Europe with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). To supplement the creation of NATO, Congress passed the Mutual Defense
Assistance Act which directed nearly 75 percent of total American foreign assistance to
NATO signatories.20 In Asia, after the communist victory in China, Truman and the NSC
devised a strategy for containing the Soviets that involved a chain of islands running from
Alaska through Japan and the archipelagos to the Philippines.21
By late 1949, the psychological impact of these external pressures on U.S.
government officials created internal demands for an increased reliance on military
means to check Soviet expansion. With communist power apparently rising, Truman
administration officials – most notably Secretary of State Dean Acheson – began to
question Kennan‘s basic assumption that the Soviet Union would not deliberately initiate
19
Ibid, 45.
Dockrill, 12.
21
Ibid., 14-15.
20
-19-
military hostilities to achieve its political goals.22 Given the immense conventional
disparity between U.S.S.R. and NATO forces, the Truman administration interpreted the
Soviet atomic test as a signal of hostile intentions to upset the balance of military
capabilities between the two rival powers. Consequently, members of both Congress and
the military establishment called on Truman to restore the balance by looking into the
feasibility of thermonuclear weapons.23 Kennan, who opposed the development of
hydrogen bombs on the grounds that they would make negotiation with the relatively
weakened U.S.S.R. impossible, resigned from the Policy Planning Staff in December
1949. By the end of January 1950, Truman authorized studies to confirm the feasibility
of thermonuclear bombs.24
With Kennan out, 1950 marked the beginning of a new way of implementing
containment. Without renouncing Kennan‘s basic strategy of containment to halt Soviet
expansion world-wide, Truman and the National Security Council began writing a
military reliance into Kennan‘s otherwise economically focused strategy. Concordant
with the decision to examine and eventually build thermonuclear weapons, Truman
ordered the National Security Council to draft a new document explaining America‘s
strategy to contain communism.25 The document they produced, known as National
Security Council Policy 68 (NSC 68), formally solidified and bolstered the military
commitments begun by Truman in 1949.
22
Gaddis, 71-77. In some interpretations, Truman and many of his officials never fully accepted Kennan‘s
premise that the Soviet Union would not behave aggressively. Even if this interpretation accurately depicts
Truman‘s thinking, the administration did not assertively respond to the Soviet military challenge until late
1949. For an example of this dissenting interpretation, see Spalding, 5-8.
23
Gaddis,79-81.
24
Spalding, 177.
25
Ibid.
-20-
At its core, NSC 68 proposed a perimeter defense strategy on the basis that ―any
substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the Kremlin would raise
the possibility that no coalition adequate to confront the Kremlin with greater strength
could be assembled.‖26 Where Kennan suggested that the United States emphasize its
strong-points against the Soviet weak points, NSC 68 held each point along the perimeter
of communist nations to be of equal importance. Influenced by the international
psychological impact of the loss of China to the communists and the development of the
Soviet atomic bomb, the drafters of NSC 68 assessed that the balance of power could tip
against the United States economically, militarily, or through a perceived loss of
credibility vis-à-vis the communists.27 Consequently, sustaining the perception that the
United States maintained a strong resistance to communism in each nation along the
perimeter and that the United States could reasonably defend any allied nation from a
Soviet military advance became the central focus of Truman‘s strategy. The United
States would, therefore, have to expand its international commitments to include more
nations and would have to increase its military capabilities.
Given Truman‘s inclinations against raising taxes or enlarging the budget deficit,
NSC 68 proposed to fund its massive expansion of U.S. foreign commitments through
Keynesian improvements to the economy. The document noted that while U.S. defense
expenditures by percentage were roughly half that of Soviet expenditures, the Soviet
economy ran at nearly full capacity while the U.S. economy did not. By raising
economic activity domestically, the U.S. could improve its gross national product by a
sufficient margin to fund increased defense expenditures. Based on historical lessons
26
―NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security: Section I: Background for the
Present World Crisis.‖ April 14, 1950. Accessed online, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm
27
Gaddis., 89.
-21-
learned during World War II, NSC 68 concluded that at maximum capacity, the
American economy could sustain increased defense spending without reducing the
standard of living.28 Despite discussing possible methods of funding expanded military
commitments, NSC 68 left the estimated costs of its recommendations ambiguous.
The start of the Korean War in June 1950 ultimately served to reveal the true
costs and ramifications of Truman‘s new strategy. The outbreak of conflict appeared to
confirm the conclusions in NSC 68 that Soviet intentions entailed the use of military
force to achieve political goals and seemed to signal the start of a major affront by the
U.S.S.R. on U.S. international influence. In Korea, needing to check the immediate
military test to U.S. power, Truman used the United Nations to justify direct
intervention.29 Elsewhere in Asia, Truman deployed the seventh fleet to the Taiwan
Strait, the first real U.S. commitment to the defense of Nationalist China from the
Communists. Truman also stationed a special police force of 75,000 men on the Japanese
islands to confirm American defense commitments there. Additionally, military aid to
French Indochina increased significantly.30 In Europe, Truman pressed to secure the
entrance of Turkey and Greece into NATO so as to allow American troop and military
commitments closer to the Soviet border.31 The costs of the war and the vastly expanded
international commitments eliminated any sense of fiscal restraint. By the time Truman
left office in 1953, annual defense expenditures had tripled and total American military
personnel had doubled.32
28
―NSC 68: Section IX: Possible Courses of Action‖
Gaddis, 95-96
30
Dockrill, 14.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid., 15.
29
-22-
In deciding how the Eisenhower administration would pursue the goals of the
Cold War, the Truman administration had a twofold impact. On one hand, the stalemate
of the Korean War after 1951 proved unpopular with the American people. An
apparently open ended and expensive conflict, the Korean War produced an outcry from
the American public sufficient to get Eisenhower elected on the promise that he would
end it.33 Popular discontent from the war convinced subsequent policymakers that the
Truman strategy of containment through expanded but fluid conventional military
deployments could not be sustained. Nonetheless, the way in which Truman
administration officials came to understand and define the nature of the Soviet threat
established the goals of containment as essential for the maintenance of American
national security. Starting with Kennan‘s revaluation of the nature of Soviet politics to
Acheson‘s conviction that Soviet threat necessitated a military response, the Truman
administration set both the tone and the goals of the Cold War.
It was in this context – the paradox between the unacceptability of open ended
conventional commitments and the desirability of strong global military presence – that
Eisenhower entered office and drafted his New Look policy. Needing to take concrete
measures to reduce the American defense budget, President Eisenhower ordered his staff
to explore a range of possible options. After a long series of debates, the president settled
on a policy that emphasized nuclear weapons at the expense of conventional deployments
to resolve the dilemma of the Truman administration. The New Look doctrine involved a
combination of policies all geared toward providing the president with the maximum
possible flexibility in the event of hostilities. Above all, New Look outlined a general
means for reducing defense expenditures without compromising the strategy of
33
Divine, 18.
-23-
containment; it did not intend to determine how administration would respond to
international crises or use its nuclear assets.
Eisenhower and the New Look
Eisenhower entered office with a bipolar world view similar to that of Truman.
The president frequently referred to the Soviets as ―totalitarians‖ and cautioned his staff
early in his presidency against relaxing pressure on the Soviet Union. In Eisenhower‘s
view, the best evidence of the bankruptcy of the Soviet model was Truman‘s failure to
successfully implement the quid-pro-quo strategy. The Kremlin, deluded by its
totalitarian ideology, had deliberately chosen the Cold War instead of peaceful relations
with the U.S. and the rest of the world.34 In Eisenhower‘s view, the U.S.S.R. showed no
signs of abandoning its policy of ―unremitting hostility to the West . . . [designed to]
enlarge . . . the Bloc economic base and . . . increase Bloc military power.‖35 If anything,
Stalin‘s death, which roughly coincided with Eisenhower‘s ascension to the presidency,
enlarged the Soviet military threat. Future Soviet leaders were unlikely to possess the
political skill demonstrated by Stalin in restraining Soviet war hawks. Without Stalin‘s
restraining influence, Eisenhower believed that the Soviet Union would pursue
progressively more reckless expansionist policies designed at draping the iron curtain
around increasingly large swaths of territory.36
But Eisenhower‘s assessment of the Soviet threat proved more expansive than the
militarily focused assessment that dominated policymaking circles by the conclusion of
Truman‘s presidency. Beyond the strictly military and nuclear threat presented by the
34
FRUS: 1952-1954, Vol. 2. 1118.
Ibid., 1127.
36
Ibid.; Gaddis, 127-128.
35
-24-
Soviet Union, Eisenhower saw an acute danger in gradual political, psychological, and
economic erosion of U.S. bastions due to Soviet manipulation. In his memoirs,
Eisenhower characterized the most frightening Soviet threat as the possibility that the
Soviet Union would turn the world against the democratic principles that gave the U.S. its
freedoms and economic viability.37 Dulles concurred. ―Soviet leaders, in their program
of world conquest,‖ Dulles wrote, ―have successfully kept military factors in the
background . . . This has greatly helped Soviet Communism . . . to exert more influence
and increase their following.‖38 Though both leaders likely exhibited some degree of
patriotic hyperbole in their assessments of the U.S.S.R., their statements accurately
depicted a revision from the strictly military thinking undertaken near the end of the
Truman administration.
Despite assessing a broad Soviet threat requiring a range of foci, Eisenhower
entered office keenly aware of the expense problems faced by the classic Truman
containment strategy. ―With 85 percent of our budget allocated to defense,‖ Eisenhower
said in a campaign speech, ―it is the Soviet Union which now fixes the level of our
defense expenditures.‖39 As a military strategist for the United States, Eisenhower
observed the problem of the potentially crushing weight of defense expenditures on an
economy as early as 1947, when he expressed his reservations to wartime aide Walter
Bedell Smith.40 By the time he assumed office, Eisenhower saw the permanent state of
economic mobilization put in place by Truman as a road to certain failure during the Cold
War. ―[O]rganized, effective resistance must be maintained over a long period of years,‖
37
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, 1953-1956: The White House Years. (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1965). 446-447.
38
John Foster Dulles, War or Peace (New York: MacMillan Company, 1950). 239.
39
Eisenhower, quoted in Dockrill, 19.
40
Alfred D. Chandler Jr. and Louis Galambros, Jr. eds. The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower: The Chief of
Staff. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970). 1609.
-25-
Eisenhower wrote, ―and that . . . is only possible with a healthy American economy.‖41
Dulles, like Eisenhower, saw the need to rein in military spending. In line with his
thinking on the more expansive nature of the Soviet threat, Dulles worried that excessive
focus on strictly military-material issues in the Cold War would allow uneconomical
military minds to take U.S. foreign and domestic policy in an unfit and expensive
direction. The need for military power would require mediation by civilian agencies
which could provide the United States with the necessary economic and moral tools to
win psychological victories over Soviet ideology.42
The predicament, as Eisenhower correctly identified in his 11 February 1953
meeting with the NSC, was how to meet the ever-growing Soviet threat while
simultaneously reducing defense expenditures. Shortly after assuming office, he set
about cutting Truman‘s requested defense budget for fiscal year 1954. Still faced with the
military necessities of the Korean War, Eisenhower reduced the army budget by only
$0.3 billion. Naval and air force budgets, on the other hand, saw more drastic cuts of
$1.9 billion and $5.3 billion respectively. All told, Eisenhower eliminated $7.5 billion
from Truman‘s proposed $41.3 billion defense budget.43 These cuts, however, came
primarily from reduced administrative overheads and decreased stockpile orders.
Eisenhower‘s defense expenditure reductions did not overhaul the Truman containment
model in a way capable of holding down defense expenses for the long term.
Throughout the summer of 1953, therefore, Eisenhower conducted the ―Solarium
Exercise,‖ a project designed to consider all available options and all available means to
implement a new grand strategy to replace NSC 68. Eisenhower divided his staff into
41
Ibid., 203.
Dulles, War or Peace, 234-235.
43
Dockrill, 32.
42
-26-
three task forces and instructed each to consider a range of factors, including ―forces
needed, costs in manpower, dollars, casualties, world relations; intelligence estimates;
time-tables; tactics in every other part of the world while actions were being taken in a
specific area; relations with the UN and our Allies; disposition of an area after gaining a
victory therein; influencing world opinion; [and] Congressional action required.‖44 Task
Force A, headed by a retired Kennan, advocated a continuation of Truman‘s policy; 45
Task Force B explored a deterrence strategy based primarily on the use of nuclear
threats;46 Task Force C examined a liberation strategy that would use a range of means to
rollback Communist control of Soviet-border states.47
Though the three task forces presented their proposals on July 16, the real work
for defining national security policy began at the month‘s end when Eisenhower ordered
the NSC Planning Board to draft a new basic security policy using the task force reports
as a starting point.48 The board spent the remainder of the summer constructing
guidelines for national security that ultimately culminated in the creation of NSC 162/2
and the accompanying New Look doctrine. The final result mixed elements from each
task force report in order to provide a strategy that afforded the president with a wide
range of options in the event of a crisis.
Central to the strategy‘s cost cutting effectiveness was the idea of deterrence
through massive retaliation proposed by Task Force B. Largely the brainchild of
Secretary Dulles, the massive retaliation strategy involved the construction of a
substantial ―deterrent force of massive retaliatory power‖ capable of convincing potential
44
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 2. 323.
Ibid., 399-403.
46
Ibid., 412- 413.
47
Dockrill, 34; Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an
Enduring Cold War Strategy, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 135-136.
48
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 2. 435-440.
45
-27-
aggressors that the possible costs of testing American commitments outweighed any
conceivable benefits. Serving both to announce the new strategy and to begin signaling
policy of deterrence, Dulles published papers and gave speeches which enunciated a
vague willingness to use massive retaliation to punish a Soviet advance.49 Using the
guiding principle of strategic ambiguity, Dulles left the circumstances in which the
United States would deploy its massive retaliation strategy unspecified.
The idea of using massive retaliation to curb Soviet threats stemmed at least in
part from Eisenhower‘s own Clauzewitzean understanding of the escalation ladder. In
his classic, On War, Karl von Clausewitz articulated a vision of total, unrestrained,
irrational violence to which a normal war might escalate were it not for material
limitations on conventional capabilities. The advent of the atomic bomb, however,
rendered total war a distinct possibility. Clausewitz‘s logic, coupled with Eisenhower‘s
own military experience, convinced the president that the world would fight the next
world war with nuclear weapons.50 Eisenhower harbored no illusions about the
undesirability of that conflict, having once described the resulting chaos as ―too horrible
to contemplate.‖51 Since, by virtue of the escalation ladder, a minor conflict between the
United States and the Soviet Union would eventually reach the point of nuclear
escalation, President Eisenhower concluded that the best available means to prevent such
a war involved making absolutely clear the end consequences at the start. By eliminating
the intervening steps on the escalation ladder, President Eisenhower hoped to encourage
Soviet rationality. The main purpose of the policy planning involved with the creation of
49
For a concise summary of these speeches and a more thorough explanation of the deterrence strategy
Eisenhower intended to implement, see ibid., 198-201.
50
Gaddis, 172-173.
51
Eisenhower, quoted in James Campbell Hagerty and Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Diary of James C.
Hagerty: Eisenhower in Mid-Course, 1954-1955 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). 102.
Eisenhower in mid-course, 1954-1955
-28-
New Look, he argued, ―was to emphasize how vital it was to avoid a third world war.‖52
Massive retaliation intended to do precisely that.
Not every conflict and scenario that the United States needed to defend against,
however, had the potential to escalate into World War III. ―The theory of massive
retaliation,‖ Eisenhower argued to his staff, ―falls down unless we can identify the
aggressor. In many cases aggression consists of subversion or civil war in a country
rather than overt attack on that country. In such cases it is difficult for us to know whom
to retaliate against.‖53 As a result, the massive retaliation strategy would only prove
effective in deterring a general war with the Soviet Union. In managing minor wars,
crises, psychological wars and other types of aggression, the United States would require
a range of other policy tools.
To deal with minor skirmishes and brushfire wars, the administration adopted,
largely from Task Force A, a broad strategy to ―build up indigenous forces to defend on
the ground‖ and offer a supporting role through the ―supply of air and naval support.‖54
In Dulles‘s own view ―massive atomic and thermonuclear retaliation is not the kind of
power which could most usefully be evoked under all circumstances.‖ Instead, the
United States would need to ―make various responses available.‖55 Though the United
States would maintain conventional military forces for the purposes of thwarting minor
conflicts, the ideal situation would involve a local defense only operationally supported
by United States forces and backed by a more sweeping nuclear umbrella. To pursue this
type of operation, the Eisenhower administration worked to foster working defense
52
Ibid., 635.
FRUS: 1952-1954, Vol. 2. 708.
54
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 79-80
55
John Foster Dulles, ―Policy for Security and Peace,‖ Foreign Affairs 32, no. 3 (April 1954): 353-364.
356-358.
53
-29-
alliances throughout the world that would support American foreign deployments and
bolster the potential for working tactical support systems. The continued support of
NATO, the pursuit of defensive treaties with Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand
through the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization, Korea through the Korean Mutual
Defense treaty, and the full endorsement of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
covering the Middle East all testified to the Eisenhower administration‘s eagerness to
foster foreign alliances. For Eisenhower, however, these alliances did not intend to serve
as lily pads for American troop deployments which had already been dismissed as an
excessively costly feature of containment.56 Instead, these alliance commitments aimed
to foster the basis of indigenous defense forces and create a ring of states aligned with the
United States encircling the zone of Communist control. Short of succeeding in creating
a local defense force, however, the administration would still have the means available to
engage in a limited conventional conflict.57
Psychological warfare and covert operations, laid out in part by Task Force C,
also constituted an option made available to the president to manage threats short of total
annihilation. In the president‘s own view, these operations could constitute anything
―from the singing of a beautiful hymn to the most extraordinary kind of sabotage.‖58
National Security Policy 162/2 made no explicit limitations on the range of activities
allowable under the umbrella of psychological warfare. Types of operations pursued
included offering support for non-orthodox Titoist communism in Yugoslavia, printed
and broadcast propaganda such as Radio Free Europe, offers of monetary reward for
56
Keith A. Barlow, Massive Retaliation, (Fort Belvoir: Ft. Belvoir Defense Technical Information Center ,
1972). 22
57
Gaddis, 151.
58
Eisenhower, quoted in Gaddis, 152.
-30-
Soviet defection, and the proposal of moralistic international cooperation initiatives like
―Open Skies,‖ a program which offered to exchange limited use of Soviet and American
airspace for aerial spy photography.59 The New Look defined covert operations as
activities ―so planned and executed that any U.S. Government responsibility for them is
not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S. Government can
plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.‖60 As with psychological warfare, no
NSC policy formally restricted the range of potential options pursuable under covert
operations. As a result, the administration undertook a breadth of secret operations in
Iran, Guatemala, China, and elsewhere.
Though the New Look strategy encouraged the president to consider a range of
options in crisis management, publically, the policy took no stance on the types of
retaliation the United States might pursue. President Eisenhower assessed that
announcing that the United States would not retaliate, or would use lesser means to
retaliate in the event of local aggression, would invite the Soviet Union to advance in
limited theaters and encourage regional instability. As a result, public speeches by
Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower consistently overemphasized the likely means
of retaliation. Terms like ―massive retaliation,‖ ―liberation,‖ ―agonizing reappraisal,‖ and
―brinksmanship,‖ littered Dulles‘s speeches throughout his tenure as Secretary of State
and projected a forceful image.61 The purpose of these speeches was deliberate
ambiguity. By emphasizing vague commitments to the vigorous defense of United States
interests, the New Look hoped to force potential Communist aggressors to ask not if the
United States would retaliate, but where and how intensely the United States would
59
Dockrill, 44-45; Gaddis, 154-155.
NSC 5412, quoted in Gaddis, 153.
61
Gaddis, 159.
60
-31-
retaliate. The firm commitment to massive retaliation that has come to characterize the
New Look, therefore, served primarily as a public deterrence measure and not an actual
decided strategy.
Doctrinally, therefore, New Look hardly constituted a dramatic revision of
national security policy to guide the administration through crises. The discussion
surrounding NSC 162/2 consistently focused on national security policy in general terms.
Hesitancy on when and how to use nuclear weapons discouraged policy makers from
making concrete commitments to any strategy, region, asset or tactic in any of the
discussions concerning the New Look doctrine. Rather, the New Look policy arose as a
response to the economic problems of the Truman administration and was intended
primarily to propose a means to resolve that issue. The overwhelming weight of the
paradox that haunted Truman, however, made the resolution of complicated questions of
how to respond to crises and constitute the U.S. force structure tremendously difficult.
New Look proposed the means to achieve that goal – shifting military emphasis toward
nuclear weapons – but deliberately did not fully explore the ends of what that policy
might entail. Although NSC 162/2 encouraged the U.S. to lower foreign troop
commitments by enhancing nuclear power, it did not follow, as many scholars have
suggested, that the United States would use its nuclear weapons or pursue a deterrence
strategy in each situation that might arise. Indeed, the ambiguity of New Look in
assessing how a war might occur or even the value of deterrence left those decisions up to
the administration in the moment of crisis. In short, the New Look policy did not give the
administration a clear rule to follow when the Quemoy-Matsu crisis arose in September
1954.
-32-
Chapter 2: September-December, 1954
Prior to the Quemoy-Matsu crisis, the United States had a relatively undefined
Taiwan policy. The Truman administration had pursued a policy that avoided explicit
commitments to the Chinese Nationalists. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman
ordered the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy to prevent any hostilities between the
Nationalists and Communists; though the containment strategy clearly favored the
Nationalists, the Seventh fleet had orders to prevent either side from initiating conflict.1
In an attempt to distance himself from Truman‘s China policy, President Eisenhower
lifted the prohibition against offensive Nationalist operations soon after taking office.2
Despite theoretically endorsing Nationalist operations against the Chinese Communists,
the Eisenhower administration did not undertake a substantive reevaluation of U.S.Taiwan policy. United States commitment to Taiwan remained limited. Eisenhower
never endorsed Nationalist plans to retake mainland China and privately criticized the
regime for its unrealistic goals and needless aggression. Likewise, Eisenhower
moderated material support for the Nationalist government by conditioning bomber
shipments on Nationalist assurances to refrain from aggression without prior consultation
with the United States.3 Unwilling to fully support the ROC‘s military ambitions to
retake the Chinese mainland, the administration assumed a tacit two-state solution by
default.
Without an official policy with regard to the Taiwan Straits, the Eisenhower
administration met the Quemoy-Matsu crisis with caution. The strategy pursued during
1
Accinelli, 107-108.
Ibid., 112-113. Truman‘s China policy received heated and popular criticism from anti-Soviet hardliners,
who accused the president of ―losing China‖ to the communists.
3
Ibid., 113-118.
2
-33-
the first few months attempted to resolve the matter diplomatically without settling the
fundamental dispute between the two Chinas. By engaging the crisis diplomatically
through the United Nations, the administration hoped to preserve the de facto two-state
settlement without overcommitting the United States to indefensible positions. In short,
this strategy represented the administration‘s attempt to engage the dispute through the
general lens of the New Look doctrine – a flexible position of strategic ambiguity.
The Crisis Begins
Neither Eisenhower nor Dulles was in Washington when the crisis began.
Eisenhower had taken a trip to his summer White House in Denver, and Dulles had gone
to Manila for South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) negotiations. The first
assessment of the situation, therefore, took place in their absence. The Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) laid down the basic facts of the crisis in a September 8, 1954
report.4 According to this assessment, the Communists had given no indication that they
intended an invasion of Quemoy Island or a broader assault on Taiwan. Given the
insufficiency of Chinese naval forces, a successful operation would require significant
use of Chinese air assets, which the Communists would have to redeploy to Amoy Island,
closer to Taiwan. The number and capabilities of available Communist troops near the
coast indicated that the Communists actually intended the shelling operations as a prelude
to an assault on the relatively unimportant Tachen islands.
The NSC, headed in Eisenhower‘s absence by Vice-President Nixon, met on
September 9 to discuss possible courses of action to deal with the situation. With
4
Central Intelligence Agency, ―The Chinese Offshore Islands,‖ report no. 50318, September 8, 1954,
International Series: Ann Whitman File, Dwight David Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS.
(Hereafter AWF and DDEL respectively)
-34-
Eisenhower absent, the meeting focused primarily on a JCS memorandum sent out a day
prior to the crisis prepared as part of a routine Pentagon review of U.S. Asia policy.5 The
Joint Chiefs assessed the islands‘ military necessity as nil. In a potential defense of
Taiwan, neither the United States nor the Republic of China would require the position
afforded by any of the offshore islands. On the other hand, in the ideological battle with
the U.S.S.R., the importance of the islands could not be overstated. The Joint Chiefs
recommended a secret defense guarantee of ten of the offshore islands on the grounds
that the loss of these islands would cause political and psychological damage to the
Chinese Nationalist position.
A failure to maintain these minor positions, the JCS
predicted, would devastate Nationalist morale, weaken U.S. prestige, and diminish
American diplomatic leverage in the Far East.6
During the NSC meeting, opinion divided over the JCS memoranda. Army chief
of staff, General Matthew Ridgway, dissented. He agreed with the majority opinion that
none of the islands served essential military functions, but argued that the psychological
and political importance of the islands ―was [not] a matter for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
evaluate.‖7 Protecting the islands, Ridgway determined, would require a significant
drawdown of U.S. forces, including ground troops. The United States simply could not
afford such commitments, nor could it risk a general war with China in the name of a few
small islands.8 Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson took a middle position. Despite
agreeing with the JCS majority that the islands carried psychological weight for the
Nationalists, he concluded that the United States should not commit to the islands‘
5
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 587
Accinelli, 159.
7
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 586.
8
Accinelli, 160.
6
-35-
defense. Doing so would almost certainly entail a general war with China. Since the
U.S. had not initiated such hostilities during the Korean War, Wilson saw no reason to
get ―into war over [some] ‗doggoned little islands.‘‖9 Undersecretary of State Walter
Bedell Smith argued that the United States should defend the islands only if policymakers
were certain they could hold Quemoy against a Chinese assault without suffering a
massive defeat.10
When these disputes flared again when the full NSC met in Denver on September
12, the president took a middle position. Eisenhower concurred that abandonment of the
islands risked a devastating psychological blow for the Nationalists. He, however,
disagreed with the JCS assessment of the possible military defense of the islands.
Stationing troops on the islands would tie down American forces and encourage the
Soviets to find similar positions to force the U.S. military into overstretch.11 More
seriously, any military defense of the islands would almost certainly entail a general war
with China, a prospect that frightened the president. For starters, the president worried
about difficulties in acquiring congressional authorization to initiate a general war. More
importantly, however, the president assessed that a war with China would require a major
military commitment. ―If we are to attack Communist China,‖ the president cautioned,
―[we would not] hold . . . back like we did in Korea. . . . We would also have to say that
we would oppose any Communist advances in the rest of the world.‖12 Ultimately,
Eisenhower concluded, if the United States intended to initiate a war, he preferred the
U.S. to ―go to the head of the snake‖ and attack the U.S.S.R. instead.
9
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 588.
Ibid., 589.
11
Ibid., 687.
12
Ibid., 619.
10
-36-
Since the president rejected the JCS plan to commit to the islands defense, the
NSC required another solution capable of avoiding the psychological loss of the islands.
After characterizing the situation as a ―horrible dilemma,‖ Secretary of State Dulles
recommended that the United States resolve the dilemma using the psychological warfare
approach advocated by the New Look. He proposed taking the issue to the United
Nations. Ideally, the United States would convince the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) to
order an injunction to maintain the status quo on the grounds that the Chinese
Communists had intended the Quemoy shelling as part of an action against Taiwan more
generally. A successful injunction would buy the United States time and embarrass the
Chinese Communists, transforming a likely defeat into a victory. More importantly, if
the United States received strong British support in the U.N., the injunction could serve
as the basis for future negotiations to stabilize the situation in Asia and bring about a
more permanent two-China solution. Even if the injunction failed, however, Dulles
imagined he could spin the loss as a victory. By taking the matter to the U.N., the
secretary hoped to earn a majority support from the non-Communist world. If the Soviet
Union vetoed the resolution, the United States would appear vindicated in condemning
Chinese actions unilaterally. If the Chinese took the matter to the point of war, the U.S.
would appear to have exhausted all diplomatic options and could blame the conflict on
Communist recklessness.13
Dulles concluded his presentation by urging the NSC to avoid a final decision on
the offshore islands matter until the State Department had thoroughly studied the option
of a U.N. injunction. Eisenhower agreed to postpone the matter and expressed his
support for the U.N. proposal. Raising the prospect of war with the American people
13
Ibid., 619-620.
-37-
would go over poorly, he announced. Though some hardliners from the West Coast
might support the initiative, Eisenhower declared, ―the letters from the farm areas
elsewhere constantly sa[id] don‘t send our boys to war.‖ If the crisis had to come to war,
that prospect would receive more popular support if the United States first consulted the
United Nations.14 Consequently, the United States began Oracle – the initiative to
acquire a U.N. injunction against further hostilities over the offshore islands.
Oracle
Dulles‘s first priority in testing the waters for his U.N. initiative was securing
British support. On September 17, during a meeting concerning Germany, Dulles raised
the U.N. initiative with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The condensed talks
yielded ―non-committal‖ responses from Eden, who remarked that ―U.S. action to defend
Formosa . . . would have wide approval but . . . the same was not true of Quemoy and the
other islands.‖15 Eden instead encouraged Dulles to negotiate the issue in bilateral talks
between the United States and the People‘s Republic of China. Dulles firmly rejected
Eden‘s idea and encouraged him to reconsider the potential benefits of the U.N. proposal.
Oracle, he argued, could ―start a process of negotiations that might overcome some of the
present difficulties in the Far Eastern situation and . . . resolve the differences [between
London and Washington].‖16 With that intention, Eden consented and the two leaders
began constructing plans for New Zealand to propose a U.N. resolution to resolve the
dilemma.
14
Ibid., 621.
Ibid., 650.
16
Quoted in Steve Yui-Sang Tsang, The Cold War’s Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership between the
Republic of China and the UK, 1950-1958, (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006). 124.
15
-38-
Despite Dulles‘s reassurances that the U.N. initiative would kindle a resettlement
of the Far East into a stable two-state situation with China and Taiwan, he consistently
refused to expand the initiative beyond a mere cease-fire and even expected the
negotiations to fail. Expanding the scope of the U.N. resolution to anything beyond the
Quemoy conflict, Dulles argued, raised the potential for the Soviets to steer the
discussion into broader issues of China policy. If a move to yield a cease-fire in the
region gave way to the suggestion of a treaty, Soviet and Chinese Communist propaganda
could accuse the West of unwarranted aggression.17 Likewise, Dulles argued that the
West could achieve the primary goal of Oracle without successfully achieving a U.N.
injunction. ―Once the item ha[d] been filed,‖ Dulles said, ―a considerable part of the
potential gain [would] have been achieved.‖ Raising the Quemoy issue with the U.N.
would ideally create a deterrent to future Chinese aggression. With the international
spotlight on the offshore islands, any Chinese military action would redound against
them.18 The United States ultimately won out in these discussions and the two parties
drafted a narrow resolution designed to address the singular conflict. As a compromise,
however, Eden insisted that both Chinas receive consultation prior to the introduction of
the proposed resolution.19
The consultations with the Chinese Nationalists, which took place a few days
before Dulles intended to introduce the resolution, derailed the project. Chiang KaiShek, fearful of the implications of a U.N. cease-fire resolution, demanded concessions
from the United States. Dulles responded by offering to negotiate a mutual defense treaty
17
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 715.
Ibid., 703-704.
19
Ibid., 704.
18
-39-
with the R.O.C.20 In London, news of the mutual defense treaty shook the consensus on
Oracle. To Eden, a U.S.-R.O.C. mutual defense treaty would make Soviet and Chinese
Communist agreement on Oracle impossible. Eden accused the United States of
negotiating in bad faith and withdrew British support for the U.N. initiative.21 Unwilling
to abandon Oracle, Dulles moved to regain British support. In subsequent discussions
with Eden, he described the treaty and U.N. resolution as complimentary. By negotiating
a restricted treaty that did not cover the offshore islands, Dulles hoped to prevent the
Nationalists from using the islands for offensive purposes. Conversely, the U.N.
resolution would deter the Communists from initiating hostilities over the island. In
tandem, the two initiatives could potentially pacify the Taiwan Straits without a formal
peace agreement between the two Chinas.22 Upon further consultation, the British agreed
to support Oracle on the condition that the United States publicly announce its intentions
to negotiate a strictly defensive treaty with Taiwan.
Dulles presented his progress on Oracle and a rough outline of the mutual defense
treaty to the NSC on October 28. As described to the British, the treaty would cover
exclusively Taiwan and the Pescadores and would prevent the Nationalist Chinese from
initiating offensive operations. Though he had not formally approached Chiang about the
treaty, he expected the Nationalists to accept its general principles. The Joint Chiefs, as
in September, dissented and requested more time to prepare a formal report on the
prospect of a mutual defense treaty. Although President Eisenhower expressed interest in
20
Ibid., 706-707; 708.
Victor S. Kaufman, Confronting Communism: U.S. and British Policies toward China, (Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 2001). 86.
22
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 771-775.
21
-40-
the Dulles proposal as ―the least bad of bad choices,‖ he allowed the JCS their requested
time.23
The next day, the Joint Chiefs met to discuss the issue. Though Admiral Radford
hesitantly recommended the mutual defense treaty, he expressed serious doubts as to the
desirability of a U.N. resolution on the offshore islands question. A resolution, he
argued, would send a signal of abandonment of the islands and encourage the Chinese
Communists to move against them. The implications of such a perceived desertion risked
the loss of American positions in Okinawa and the Philippines.24 Moreover, the U.N.
resolution would serve as ―tacit admission that the ChiNats could no longer lay claim to
being the legitimate government of all China‖ which, Radford argued could ―in turn
could be construed as an acknowledgement that the Chinese Communist Government is
the legitimate government of mainland China.‖25 Notably, Radford used all of these
points to accuse the State Department of shifting strategy away from the guidelines
outlined in the New Look. Dulles‘s strategy, Radford argued, violated the New Look
position to ―take feasible political, economic, propaganda and covert measures designed
to . . . impair Soviet relations with Communist China [and] complicate control in the
satellites.‖26
The November 2 NSC meeting settled the issue in Dulles‘ favor. Dulles agreed
that the possibility of even implicit recognition of the Chinese Communist government
meant a loss of American bastions not compatible with the goals of the New Look policy.
Even so, he worried that adopting the JCS proposals for committing to a defense of the
23
Ibid., 803-809.
Ibid., 818.
25
Ibid., 820.
26
Ibid., 817.
24
-41-
offshore islands put the United States in an equally precarious position that defied the
principles of flexibility outlined in the New Look. To resolve the difference, Dulles
recommended U.S. diplomats ―fuzz up‖ the language of the treaty. By obfuscating the
wording, the United States would leave its position regarding a Communist assault on the
offshore islands ambiguous. Though the treaty would explicitly commit American troops
to the defense of Taiwan and the Pescadores, it would leave room for the United States to
determine if an attack on the offshore islands prefigured an attack on Taiwan. The result
would provide a deterrent effect by ―maintain[ing] doubt in the minds of the Communists
as to how the U.S. would react to an attack on the offshore islands.‖27 Eisenhower issued
a tentative acceptance of Dulles‘s proposals. As in the September meeting, most of
Eisenhower‘s concerns centered on domestic and world opinion. He cautioned Dulles to
avoid articulating a needlessly hostile position and urged him to ensure that each portion
of the proposed treaty acted in accordance with the constitutional process.28
On November 1, the Chinese Communists initiated a temporary shelling operation
in the Tachen islands which encouraged the State Department to speed up defense treaty
negotiations. By November 23, after a self-described ―difficult negotiation,‖ Dulles had
completed and initialed a preliminary treaty text which met the standards of Foreign
Minister of Nationalist China, George C.K. Yeh.29 For the most part, the treaty
resembled the positions Dulles outlined in earlier NSC meetings; the United States agreed
27
Ibid., 828-829.
Ibid., 829.
29
Ibid., 929. For a more thorough description of this negotiation, see Accinelli, 174-177.
28
-42-
to defend Taiwan and the Pescadores but took an ambiguous stance on the offshore
islands.30
Though Dulles had succeeded in negotiating a treaty, Oracle still faced
challenges. British officials did not find the proposed treaty acceptable. Oracle could
only move forward if the United States made no defensive commitment to the offshore
islands and avoided turning Taiwan into a ―privileged sanctuary.‖31 The treaty fulfilled
neither obligation. In Eden‘s view, the full text of the treaty ―radically changed‖ the
perceived purpose of the U.N. project. By leaving the U.S. position on the offshore
islands ambiguous, the Americans made settling the issue of the islands and the tensions
with China impossible. Consequently, the British continued to withhold support for
Oracle.32 Concurrent with the British dissent, the Chinese Communists announced on
November 23 their intention to imprison eleven U.S. airmen and two civilians captured in
Chinese territory in January, 1953. The decision enraged the American public and
intensified tensions between the United States and the People‘s Republic of China. The
result convinced the British that the atmosphere no longer suited a U.N. initiative that
―would appear to the world as a further move in the cold war and . . . might do more
harm than good.‖33
In the United States, China‘s actions gave new credence to the hardline position
of the JCS and others, and forced the president to tackle other issues before Oracle. The
Department of Defense issued a series of hostile recommendations ranging from a sea
30
―Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States of America and the Republic of China,‖ Article VI,
accessed online, http://usinfo.org/sino/dtreaty_e.htm .
31
Kaufman, 87.
32
Tsang, 130; Accinelli, 177.
33
Eden, quoted in Tsang, 131.
-43-
blockade to provisional support for a Nationalist raid on mainland China.34 Despite
National Intelligence Estimates that suggested the futility of any of the Pentagon‘s
suggested actions, the Joint Chiefs issued similar recommendations and encouraged
Eisenhower to take a harder line with the Chinese Communists.35 Eisenhower rejected
retaliation and instead pursued the sentencing issue through the United Nations. Since
the Chinese had captured the eleven airmen during the Korean War, Eisenhower argued
that the issue needed to be resolved through the framework of the Korean armistice
agreement. From this perspective, the Chinese decision to detain the prisoners violated
international law.36
Though British opposition and pressing concerns regarding the prisoners delayed
Oracle, Dulles and the administration decided to continue with the negotiation of a
mutual defense treaty. Reasoning that ―a good deal of information about the treaty had
already leaked,‖ Dulles concluded that the United States could not delay the
announcement.37 Any such delay would send an unwanted signal of hesitancy in United
States willingness to support its allies. On December 1, Dulles announced the agreement
and the next day both parties signed the treaty. Domestically, the treaty was wellreceived.38
As a result of the positive reaction the treaty received, Dulles renewed the push
for Oracle with the British. He hoped to compel the British to action by pointing out that
New Zealand would assume the rotating presidency of the Security Council in January.
34
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 948-949.
Ibid., 952-955; Accinelli, 178.
36
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
1954: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President. Washington D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1960. 1074-1077.
37
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 962.
38
Ibid., 989.
35
-44-
As a result, the resolution would have to move forward within the week.39 Even so, the
British continued to drag their feet. The British ambassador to the United States pointed
out that precedent for the Chair of the Security Council to introduce resolutions existed;
as a result, Dulles had no real reason to demand a rapid move on the U.N. initiative.
Eden likewise expressed recalcitrance. In order to proceed, he asserted, the British would
need at least a minimal assurance that the Chinese Communists would react favorably.
Eden also worried that until the tension from the mutual defense treaty waned, the
introduction of the U.N. resolution would only encourage hostilities from the P.R.C.40
Discussions with the British through mid-December met with little progress. By
December 17, Dulles, concluding that another Chinese Communist attack against the
offshore islands was not imminent, agreed to postpone Oracle for the time being.41
Three months after he had proposed it, Oracle had failed to materialize. The
administration entered 1955 with little progress with regard to the offshore islands crisis.
While the Sino-American mutual defense treaty had formalized the administration‘s
position regarding the defense of Taiwan, the NSC had reached no formal conclusion
regarding the offshore islands. With the intent of maintaining flexibility, President
Eisenhower had deferred decisions on how and when to defend the islands. Had Oracle
proven successful, he could have avoided the political costs of committing to one strategy
over another. Oracle represented, therefore, a genuine attempt to meet the guidelines
established in the New Look doctrine. That policy backed away from the rigidness of
containment in favor of a flexible response that avoided overcommitting U.S. forces; at
the same time, it favored cost efficient means of containing Soviet expansion. Oracle met
39
Ibid.
Ibid., 989-993.
41
Ibid., 1035.
40
-45-
both components. As Eisenhower understood it, the ―horrible dilemma‖ of the offshore
islands crisis was that abandonment of the islands represented a Communist victory while
commitment to the islands represented a costly and needlessly risky strategy. By
directing the issue to the United Nations, the U.S. could maintain the status quo at a
negligible financial and political cost. The hardline strategy proposed by the Joint Chiefs
and the Pentagon would have forced the United States into a dangerous commitment to a
few minor and non-essentially keys; on the other hand, the abandonment strategy
proposed by Wilson and others would have signaled weakness and cost the United States
political support throughout Asia. Though far from perfect, the Oracle strategy seemed,
as Eisenhower aptly put it, ―the least bad of bad choices.‖42
By December‘s end, when it became apparent that Oracle had stalled, discontent
with the initiative grew throughout the administration. At the end of December, during a
mandatory review of NSC 5429 – an overarching policy statement on the Far East –
Secretary of the Treasury George M. Humphrey expressed his concerns with the offshore
islands policy. When the question arose whether the NSC should eliminate prohibitions
on Nationalist operations against Chinese Communist commerce, Humphrey announced
that he ―saw no reason why the United States should get itself involved in Quemoy.‖
When the president replied that NSC 5429 had ―nothing whatever to do with Quemoy,‖
the secretary retorted that the whole problem was bound together and that he would only
support unleashing Nationalist attacks on Communist commerce if the administration got
out of its ―untenable position respecting the offshore islands.‖43 The Joint Chiefs, who
had opposed Oracle from the beginning, aired more fierce disagreements with the policy
42
43
Ibid., 803-809.
Ibid., 1045.
-46-
from the opposite perspective. In their view, the equivocation of the Oracle strategy sent
a signal that the United States would hesitate to uphold its commitments against
Communist aggression. As a result, they renewed their calls for a public commitment to
the defense of the offshore islands.44 Even outside the NSC, dissent reigned. Henry
Owen, an official in the Office of Intelligence Research, sent a memorandum to the
Policy Planning Staff urging it to reconsider U.S. policy toward the offshore islands. He
argued that the status quo policy of ambiguity was unlikely to deter Communist
aggression and encouraged the administration to either commit to defending the islands
or abandon them. Though each position had its disadvantages, Owen concluded that
either strategy would be preferable to ambiguity.45 Eisenhower, therefore, entered the
second phase of the crisis facing increasing internal criticism regarding his position of
decided ambiguity. When renewed Communist shelling brought the crisis to the fore
again in early January 1955, the administration found itself confronted with the need to
lean toward one side or the other.
44
45
Accinelli, 180.
FRUS: 1952-1954, vol. 14, part I. 996-1001.
-47-
Chapter 3: January-February, 1955
The offshore islands crisis entered into a new phase during the early weeks of
January 1955. On January 10, Chinese Communist bombers launched their largest attack
since September against Tachen Island.1 Eight days later, the Chinese Communists
successfully captured Yikiangshan, a minor key north of the Tachens.2 Simultaneously,
United Nations negotiations concerning the release of American prisoners stalled.3 The
sum total of these events persuaded Eisenhower and Dulles that the strictly diplomatic
strategy pursued in the later months of 1954 could not stem a Chinese advance on the
offshore islands. More troubling, a range of dissent at home and abroad convinced the
administration that the lack of a concrete policy on the offshore islands was generating a
perception of indecision and weakness on the part of the president. For Eisenhower and
Dulles, therefore, the crisis represented a more serious test to the New Look doctrine than
previously thought. The position of flexibility pursued during the autumn had created a
situation in which the United States needed to take a more concrete stance. Even so, both
Eisenhower and Dulles worried about the consequences of making any unnecessary
commitments. As a result, the president and his secretary of state spent January and
February designing a slightly more rigid strategy aimed at showing resolve while
increasing diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis without war.
A New Strategy
Almost as soon as the Chinese Communists resumed shelling, calls for more
serious commitments to the defense of the offshore islands increased in volume and
1
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2, 10-11.
Ibid., 37.
3
Ibid., 56.
2
-48-
frequency. In a meeting with the State Department, Chinese Nationalist ambassador V.K.
Wellington Koo stressed the growing military capacity of the Chinese Communist
government, urged the United States to deploy the Seventh Fleet closer to Tachen Island,
and pushed for assurances of ―generous logistic support‖ for the defense of the offshore
islands.4 Concurrently, Dr. George Yeh, Taiwan‘s Foreign Minister, argued that the
indication of a positive interest in the retention of the offshore islands followed by public
statements by top administrative officials would be a strong deterrent.5 Both leaders
noted the inability of the Chinese Nationalist government to maintain the offshore island
positions without assistance. Within the administration, the Joint Chiefs intensified their
push for a more hardline stance. Having argued for defensive commitments from the
start of the crisis, Admiral Radford seized upon the renewed hostilities to encourage
substantive reconsiderations of U.S. policy.6
The cumulative effect of resumed Chinese shelling and increased pressure from
Taiwan and the JCS convinced Dulles to reconsider the strategy of diplomatic ambiguity.
On January 19, Dulles expressed his agreement with Admiral Radford about the dangers
of the September-November strategy in a meeting with the president. Commenting on
the situation, Dulles declared that the apparent doubt as to U.S. intentions was negatively
affecting U.S. regional prestige. ―Since it was in many quarters assumed that we would
defend the islands,‖ Dulles said, ―our failure to do so indicated that we were running
away when actual danger appeared.‖ Consequently, Dulles concluded that the United
States would need to make clear its intentions. Since abandoning the islands had the
likely outcome of inducing backlash from the Republic of China, Dulles decided that the
4
Ibid., 16-17.
Ibid., 39.
6
Ibid., 43.
5
-49-
administration would have to modify the old strategy to take a clear stance on U.S.
commitments to Taiwan.7 Dulles remained cautious, however, of issuing blanket
assurances over all of the islands as previously proposed by the JCS. In a rough draft of
his proposed changes, the secretary of state argued that the United States should
encourage the evacuation of all islands other than Quemoy. To facilitate an orderly
movement of people, the administration would extend temporary air and sea protection to
all of the islands. Simultaneously, the United States would publicly denounce Chinese
Communist aggression and agree to assist the Nationalists in defending Quemoy pending
action by the United Nations to resolve the crisis.8
President Eisenhower agreed with Dulles's suggestions and authorized
preliminary actions to determine the viability of the new strategy. That same day, Dulles
met with the Taiwanese and British ambassadors to discuss options.9 As Dulles waited
for replies from London and Taipei, he set about to ―educate Congress as to the
requirements of the present situation.‖10 Dulles‘s main concern was that the United
States not commit itself to actions it was not prepared to take. As he understood it, the
nature of the problem stemmed from the previous strategy of absolute flexibility.
Chinese Communist refusal to back down had begun to expose indecision within the
administration. As a result, a policy of bluffing bore the same risks. Since the Chinese
Communists had made clear their intent to probe U.S. commitments in the region, any
firm stance would require a willingness to follow through lest Chinese Communist
7
Ibid., 42-43.
Ibid., 43-44.
9
Ibid., 44-46; 46-50.
10
Ibid., 49.
8
-50-
operations do further damage to U.S. prestige.11 ―The U.S. Government,‖ Dulles
declared, ―could not afford to bluff in this situation. We cannot indicate that we may
intervene unless we are in fact prepared to do so.‖12 Before the president could announce
defensive commitments, therefore, the administration would have to secure approval
from Congress for whatever military action the NSC chose to pursue.
The preliminary response from Congress proved amenable to Dulles‘s plan. In a
meeting with a select group of representatives and senators, Dulles and Radford
explained the nature of their intended operation. Some senators expressed concern that
minor dog-fights during the evacuation of the Tachens could lead to miscalculation as
U.S. pilots in pursuit of enemy planes would overstep proper bounds. Reassurances from
Radford that American planes would not need to follow communist planes back to their
bases essentially quelled these fears.13 Other legislators expressed worries that Dulles‘s
plan would commit the United States to the permanent defense of Quemoy. Dulles
explained, however, that he believed it unwise to commit to a permanent defense of the
offshore islands and that any proposed resolution authorizing presidential action over the
offshore island would be strictly temporary.14 Beyond these minor concerns, most of the
meeting focused on the speed with which the legislature would need to pass the required
resolution and ratify the Taiwan defense treaty.15 In a meeting with the NSC a few hours
later, Dulles summarized congressional opinion as highly favorable and commented the
11
Ibid.
Ibid., 40.
13
Ibid., 61.
14
Ibid., 62-63.
15
Ibid., 58-59, 65-68.
12
-51-
―there was little doubt that the Congress would promptly give the President the powers
which he needed to meet the situation.‖16
Internationally, the Dulles plan received approval from the British only after a
series of miscommunications regarding his intentions. Upon learning of the plan, the
British concluded that they would support the initiative and follow through with Oracle
only if Washington offered no guarantee to defend Quemoy. When British Ambassador
Roger Makins conveyed this position to the Americans, however, he announced that
London would proceed only if the United States would make no specific public
commitments to the islands.17 As a result, Eisenhower opted to keep secret the decision
to defend Quemoy as a concession to the British.18 Adding to the confusion, Makins
misinformed London on the nature of Eisenhower‘s concession by stating that the
administration would make ―no additional public or private commitment to the
Nationalists.‖19 Without understanding the full details of the situation, the United
Kingdom offered its consent to the new strategy and agreed to move forward on drafting
a U.N. resolution.
Approval from Taipei came grudgingly. Considering the move to evacuate the
Tachens undesirable but necessary, Chiang agreed to the proposal pending American
promises of certain conditions. In addition to the maintenance of secrecy regarding the
evacuation, Chiang requested that the United States make its commitments to Quemoy
public, move quickly on the ratification of the Taiwan defense treaty, oppose ratification
of the New Zealand resolution, and assure him that the administration had made no deal
16
Ibid., 73.
Ibid., 88.
18
Ibid., 96-97.
19
Makins, quoted in Accinelli, 191.
17
-52-
to delay action on the treaty in exchange for the release of American prisoners in
Beijing.20 Assistant Secretary of State for the Far East Walter Robertson made clear that
the United States could only offer general assurances to protect the Taiwan area with no
explicit statements regarding Quemoy; he also adamantly refused on behalf of the
administration to oppose the New Zealand resolution. On the other points, the
Ambassador agreed, though he expressed his doubts as to the ability to maintain total
secrecy regarding the evacuation of the Tachens.21 After some negotiation regarding the
wording of the New Zealand proposal, the nationalist government reluctantly agreed to
support the U.S. policy on commitments to defend the offshore islands.22
The administration‘s thinking on the nature of these commitments during the
preliminary stages of the crisis focused on conventional capabilities and the difficulty of
using ground troops. Dulles first considered the details of defense when deciding to
evacuate the Tachens. Geographically, all of the islands were too close to mainland
China and too far from U.S. airbases to use any defense other than one based from air
craft carriers. Given the distance of the Tachens from the other offshore islands,
providing continuous air cover to defend all of the offshore island would necessitate two
major carriers. It made little sense, he concluded, to tie up half of the carriers available in
the Far East ―in order to defend a rocky islet of no strategic importance.‖23 After
deciding to evacuate the Tachens, Dulles concluded that a defense of the offshore islands
did not necessitate substantial U.S. commitments. Quemoy Island, unlike the Tachen
Islands, could receive cover from the Nationalist air force based in Taiwan. Once the
20
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 106-107.
Ibid., 107-110.
22
Ibid. 110; 113-114.
23
Ibid., 40.
21
-53-
Nationalists had completed their withdrawal from the Tachens, Nationalist troops could
regroup and put up a more viable defense without U.S. assistance.24 U.S. defense of
Quemoy, therefore, could involve primarily provisions of general air cover over the
islands.25
Though the administration refused to rule out the possibility of direct strikes on
the Chinese mainland, President Eisenhower consistently emphasized the limited nature
of U.S. commitments, which, in his mind, reduced the risk of war.26 ―It would be the role
of the United States,‖ the president decided, ―to supply air and naval support in the event
of overt Communist aggression.‖27 By all expectations the conflict would stay limited to
such an extent as to preclude the need to escalate. The United States would only consider
using atomic weapons, Dulles concluded, in response to ―the most extreme hypothesis of
the Communists attacking Quemoy in so heavy a human wave as to make it impossible to
stop them with ordinary fire power. . . a remote possibility.‖28 The United States would
have no reason to escalate the conflict to such point. Even the usually hawkish Admiral
Radford concluded that the islands, while important, were not indispensable.29
President Eisenhower saw the nature of these proposed commitments as a show of
resolve in the face of a challenge to the New Look policy. The president argued in
response to criticism of the defense of Quemoy that the purpose of the New Look policy
24
Ibid., 57.
Ibid., 59. When pressed with Congressional concerns about the President‘s ability to declare war,
Secretary Dulles explained that the likely course of action in the defense of Quemoy would involve a
redeployment of the Seventh Fleet. Though the president could conceivably take such action without
Congressional approval with precedent in the Truman administration‘s non-commitment strategy (see
Chapter 1), Dulles believed it better to have the sanction of Congress.
26
Ibid., 51, 75; Dulles, Memorandum for the Record, January 29, 1955, AWF: Dwight David Eisenhower
Diary, Box 9, DDEL.
27
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 79.
28
Ibid., 88-89.
29
Accinelli, 194.
25
-54-
was to ―build up indigenous forces to defend on the ground‖ against Communist attacks
and show a willingness to support allies against communism within reasonable limits.
Defending Taiwan from the advances of communism had ―long been the general policy
of this Administration.‖ Since the Chinese Communists were determined to test that
policy, Eisenhower concluded that the United States would have to stand up. If the
United States was going to contain communism, it followed that the administration ―must
be concerned with the morale of those soldiers who might well be called upon to defend
Formosa if the Chinese Communists attacked it.‖30 A general agreement to defend
Quemoy Island, at least until such a point that the C.C.P. renounced its goal to retake
Taiwan, would fulfill the U.S. obligation to check communist expansion in the region.
The purpose of the entire strategy was to deter the Chinese Communists. To
Dulles‘s thinking, the Chinese intended simply to erode the viability of U.S. positions in
the area. ―The Chinese Communists,‖ Dulles argued, ―didn‘t want to ‗get tough with us
in a big way.‘‖31 In line with decisions made in National Security Council decision
5429/5 to defend U.S. Far East interests ―if necessary at the risk but without being
provocative of war,‖ Dulles‘s strategy hoped through the combined effect of diplomatic
carrots and military sticks to dissuade Chinese aggression.32 A National Intelligence
Estimate from January 25 confirms the deterrence thesis. Assuming Congressional
approval of the request to defend the offshores, the report expressed the belief that ―it
[was] unlikely that the Communists would deliberately attack US forces.‖ Once
convinced of the U.S. intention to maintain the islands, Chinese Communist probing in
the region would likely shift to a strategy of diplomatic subversion rather than military
30
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 79-80
Ibid., 80.
32
FRUS: 1952-54, vol. 12. 1064; FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 93.
31
-55-
seizure of the Quemoy garrison. Cautioning that the Chinese Communists would not
easily abandon their intention to take the offshore islands, the report argued that in the
long term, maintaining the offshore islands seemed untenable. Even so, in the short term,
firm Congressional support for the defense resolution would have a calming effect on the
region as the Chinese hoped to avoid full-scale conflict.33
Despite its limited scope and firm support from Dulles, Eisenhower, and Radford,
the Dulles plan met stiff resistance from some members of the NSC. In an NSC meeting
on January 20, Secretary Humphrey criticized the strategy as needlessly aggressive. He
agreed that the United States needed to ―draw a line‖ in response to the difficulties faced
by the deliberately ambiguous strategy pursued in earlier months, but disagreed about the
decision to draw that line around Quemoy. To his thinking, ―Quemoy was a ‗hot spot‘
right in the middle of Chinese Communist territory.‖34 Secretary Wilson expressed his
agreement. Defending Quemoy could only possibly result in a foolish war with
Communist China over a few small and materially worthless islands. Both Wilson and
Humphrey advocated demonstrating determination to hold Taiwan and the Pescadores
while letting go of the outlying islands.35 Throughout the meeting, Secretary Humphrey
remained adamant that the United States not commit itself to the defense of Quemoy
unless such a defense were made in order to facilitate the evacuation of the Quemoy
garrison. Hoping to win support for his position, the secretary even proposed offering to
trade the island in exchange for the release of the American prisoners in Beijing.36
However, he also urged the secretary of state to renew his efforts with the United Nations
33
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 125-128.
Ibid., 76.
35
Ibid., 77.
36
Ibid., 80.
34
-56-
in an attempt to stabilize the region before the United States committed itself to
Quemoy.37
Despite Humphrey‘s stiff resistance, Eisenhower maintained that Dulles‘s
strategy seemed the best possible option. On January 24, 1955, the president sent a
message to Congress seeking a ―resolution [which] would clearly and publicly establish
the authority of the President as Commander-in-Chief to employ the armed forces of [the
United States] promptly and effectively‖ for the defense of Taiwan and the Pescadores.
Eisenhower skirted the issue of the offshore islands by stating merely that the United
States needed to ―take into account closely related localities and actions which . . . might
determine the failure or the success of [an attack on Taiwan].‖ Put differently, the
president requested the flexibility to make determinations regarding Chinese Communist
intentions in attacking the offshore islands and to take appropriate measures as deemed
necessary. Beyond authority to exercise military power in the Taiwan area, Eisenhower
also urged the Senate to promptly ratify the mutual defense treaty. Finally, in keeping
with the effort to maintain diplomatic pressure on the Chinese Communists, Eisenhower
expressed his hope that the United Nations would manage to achieve an end to the
hostilities without U.S. intervention. 38
Even before Congress approved the resolution granting Eisenhower authority to
take military action, the administration began laying the groundwork for its defense
operation. On January 25, the secretary of defense authorized the Air Force to
temporarily station a fighter bomber wing of F-86s in Taiwan.39 With the addition of
more aircraft from the United States, the F-86 unit on Taiwan would consist of seventy37
Ibid., 81.
Eisenhower, Public Papers of the President, 207-211.
39
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 123.
38
-57-
five planes.40 Admiral Alfred M. Pride, commander of the Seventh Fleet, had
concurrently begun redeploying U.S. naval assets. He concentrated four aircraft carriers
at a midpoint between Taiwan and the Tachens and had ordered another aircraft carrier,
the Princeton, to join the concentration shortly. Admiral Radford had also placed logistic
support vessels on standby.41
As the administration began to implement the military logistics of the new
strategy, the NSC held a meeting to outline positions on the nature of a possible war with
the People‘s Republic. By this point in the crisis, few in the administration believed a
war with China would involve substantial U.S. military operations. At the start of the
meeting, Admiral Radford made clear that the United States would have no conceivable
reason to engage in a substantial land war with the Chinese. Radford emphatically
declared that in the event of a general war between the United States and Communist
China, all the worst difficulties would be on the Chinese rather than on the U.S. side.
―The great problem of the Chinese in such a war,‖ Radford declared, ―was to ‗get at us if
we don‘t choose to be got at.‘‖ When questioned by Secretary Humphrey how the
admiral intended to end a war without ground troops, Radford replied that the Chinese
had ―very little offensive capability.‖ Consequently, the United States could end a war
without significant effort. Secretary Dulles concurred with Radford‘s military analysis
but expressed fear that a greater danger in initiating a war would be the possibility of
such a conflict to alienate American allies and derail U.S. political engagements in
Europe.42 Radford conceded that he had not considered the political consequences of a
serious military engagement with the Chinese, but announced that he thought the
40
Ibid., 136.
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 138.
41
-58-
likelihood of such an event low. From his perspective, ―Russia and China were bluffing‖
and the United States would succeed in ―calling their bluff if [it] proceeded along the
lines of the recent decision respecting the defense of Formosa and certain of the offshore
islands.‖43 President Eisenhower expressed his agreement with Admiral Radford. Even
the usually cautious Harold Stassen expressed his faith in the ability of the Dulles
strategy to hold off an attack on Taiwan or the offshore islands.44
On Capitol Hill, debates about the president‘s Taiwan message moved quickly
and decisively in the administration‘s favor. The day after the president issued his
statement regarding the Taiwan situation, the House began debating a resolution to grant
the president all requested authority. As expected, Congressional support for the
president was overwhelming. The same day, the resolution passed the House on a nearly
unanimous 410-3 margin.45 The Senate deliberated for a few days longer. After debating
and easily dismissing a handful of attempts to limit Eisenhower‘s authority to Taiwan and
the Pescadores, the resolution moved to the Senate floor by a 27-2 margin. The next day,
January 29, the Senate approved the resolution 85-3.46
Simultaneous to Congressional debates about the defense resolution, Dulles
pushed forward with the U.N. initiative. While the British proved cooperative, the
Chinese Nationalists renewed their opposition to the initiative. In meetings with the State
Department, Chinese Nationalist officials argued against many of the British additions to
the U.N. initiative. In particular, Chinese Foreign Minister Yeh criticized the portion of
the proposal which allowed the Chinese Communists to speak before the U.N. Security
43
Ibid., 139.
Ibid., 140.
45
Accinelli, 193.
46
Ibid., 194.
44
-59-
Council as granting the Communists de facto membership in the United Nations. The
Communists, he argued, should only be allowed to submit proposals in writing. Yeh also
objected to the language of the resolution, which he felt failed to place blame on the
Chinese Communists as aggressors. At a basic level, however, most of the Nationalist
criticisms of the resolution centered on the idea that it lent credence to a two-China
concept. Yeh derided the language of ―peaceful settlement‖ and insisted the resolution
place the term ―People‘s Government of China‖ in quotation marks so as to bracket it as
illegitimate.47 On the basis of rumors concerning British intentions in introducing the
resolution, Yeh expressed (not unfounded) paranoia that the United States had secretly
acquiesced to a two-China policy and that the U.N. resolution represented the first step in
reaching an unwanted settlement of the China issue.48
Concurrently, the Nationalists put up new resistance to the agreed upon military
components of Dulles‘s strategy. In the same meetings, Yeh demanded that prior to the
evacuation of the Tachens the United States give public assurance of its commitments to
defend Quemoy. Despite repeated reminders of the previous agreement, Dr. Yeh proved
persistent. Understanding the sensitivities to psychological defeats, Yeh emphasized that
although the Formosa Resolution had improved morale, Nationalist troops remained
uneasy about Quemoy and Matsu. At the very least, the United States would need to
issue an official confidential communication as to U.S. intent regarding Quemoy and
Matsu.49
In a display of his anger over the U.N. issue and U.S. ambiguity regarding
Quemoy, Chiang announced that he would not accept U.S. assistance in the evacuation of
47
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 145-147; 154-157.
Ibid., 154.
49
Ibid., 144-145.
48
-60-
the offshore islands until the United States made clear it would protect Quemoy Island.
He expressed his opinion that the ―cause for Free China based upon principle which [sic]
[presumably was] more important than success or failure‖ and emphasized words ―such
as honor, probity, equity, [and] sincerity.‖50 In short, Chiang decided to put up stiff
resistance to any U.S. move on either the U.N. initiative or the evacuation of the Tachens.
Chinese reluctance delayed any significant movement through the end of January.
Despite Chiang‘s persistence, President Eisenhower flatly refused to yield to any of his
demands. He authorized Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover to draft a message
designed for reassuring Chiang while staying firm on both the U.N. and Tachen issues.51
The message pointed out that at no point had the United States agreed to make public
commitments to either Quemoy or Matsu Island. Hoover‘s statement went on, however,
to reassure the Nationalists of the U.S. intention to defend either island in the event of an
attack by the Chinese Communists. Even so, the statement made clear that the United
States would not ―draw an absolute geographical line or . . . specify which islands were
important to the defense of Formosa.‖ On the basis that the relative importance of
various islands depended on circumstance, the president left it within his discretion to
determine how and when to defend the offshore islands.52 The Nationalists continued to
drag their feet on the issues until finally, on February 5, Chiang consented to withdraw
from the Tachens without an overt commitment to the defense of Quemoy and Matsu.53
In the interim, Dulles pressed forward on Oracle. Despite Nationalist opposition
to the measure, Washington, London, and Wellington submitted a draft letter of the
50
Ibid., 167-168.
Ibid., 174-176.
52
Ibid., 182-184.
53
Ibid., 224-225.
51
-61-
proposed resolution to the President of the Security Council on January 28.54 On January
31, the Security Council met to discuss the New Zealand letter and a letter from the
Soviet Union that expressed concern over acts of aggression by the United States against
the People‘s Republic of China and recommending the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from
Taiwan. After a series of votes, the Council agreed to discuss both proposals at the next
meeting, giving priority to the New Zealand proposal. As per the provisions of the New
Zealand proposal, the Council agreed to invite a representative of the P.R.C. to join in the
negotiations.55
Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai rejected the invitation three days later and
announced that the People‘s Republic of China would only participate in negotiations
absent any representative from the Nationalist government for the purpose of discussing
the Soviet proposal.56 The announcement sent the Oracle negotiations into a tailspin. In
the United States, diplomats attempted to determine the purpose of the Soviet proposal
which had thrown an unexpected wrench into Washington‘s plans. From Moscow, U.S.
Ambassador Charles Bohlen, who believed the U.S.S.R. as averse as the United States to
a Sino-American conflict, believed that the Soviets had intended their proposal to make
attendance of the negotiations more attractive to the Chinese Communists. It seemed that
by splitting the negotiations between the pro-Communist Soviet proposal and the proNationalist U.S. proposal, the Chinese Communists would find reason to attend the U.N.
sessions. Bohlen saw no indication that the Soviets expected the Chinese to react so
unfavorably to the proposal.57 In London, the striking Communist reaction convinced
54
Ibid., 132.
Ibid., 178-179.
56
Ibid., 202.
57
Ibid., 210-211.
55
-62-
Eden to diminish British commitments to the Oracle strategy. From Eden‘s perspective,
pressing the issue further would only exacerbate the tense feelings regarding the crisis
and incur a veto from the Soviets.58 The British, therefore, pushed the White House to
abandon Oracle and the offshore islands altogether. In early February, British diplomats
conveyed in veiled terms their willingness to stand behind a decision to withdraw from
all the off-shore islands and ―make [a] stand on Formosa and the Pescadores.‖59 By
February 7, Eden made expressly clear his desire to see the United States abandon its
commitments to the offshore islands. In moving forward with the U.N. initiative, Eden
expressed his opinion that the U.N. ought not to entirely foreclose discussion of the
Soviet option. Announcing his full support for a two-China policy in which ―Peiping . . .
abandon any idea of an attack on Formosa while Formosa abandons any idea of an attack
on the Mainland,‖ he encouraged the United States to explore other diplomatic channels
to resolve the issue.60 Though Dulles refused to give up on Oracle entirely, the British
persuaded him to postpone the operation once again.61
In response to the Chinese Communist refusal, two new avenues for negotiation
opened, each with varying degrees of British support. On February 4, Soviet Minister of
Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov proposed a ten-nation conference convened by the
U.S.S.R. with Britain and India. The attending parties at the conference could summon
the United States and the People‘s Republic of China to force negotiations between the
two parties.62 Two days later, the Chinese Premier announced through the U.N. Secretary
58
Ibid., 212.
Ibid., 214.
60
Ibid., 235.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid., 223-224; 239.
59
-63-
General Dag Hammarskjöld a willingness to negotiate bilaterally with the United
States.63
The Eisenhower administration rejected each of the proposed solutions. Little
evidence suggests that the administration gave any serious consideration to Chou EnLai‘s proposal for direct, bilateral negotiations. Dulles dismissed the offer as a ploy to
confuse the real issues and chided the Secretary General for his presumptuous and ―freewheeling‖ negotiations.64 In response to the Molotov proposal, the White House
concluded that such a Geneva-style conference would put the United States in an
untenable position. While the Chinese continued to harass the islands, they would use the
conference to push abatement on their own terms. ―The very fact that the ChiComs took
part,‖ Policy Planning Staff Director Robert Bowie concluded ―would brand any outcome
as appeasement.‖65 Fearful of emboldening the Chinese Communists to further
aggression with a conciliatory attitude, the administration made no effort in either
negotiation. It seemed to both Eisenhower and Dulles that the United States still had
other options remaining to attempt resolve the crisis.
If the administration could see no progress in regards to its diplomatic efforts, it
could take at least minor solace in the general success of the Tachen evacuation which
boded well for the general deterrence strategy put forward in the Taiwan defense treaty.
By February 10, five days after the Nationalists consented to move forward with the
evacuation, Admiral Radford announced that the operations had proceeded ―very
successfully‖ with the loss of only one U.S. aircraft.66 Vice Admiral Howard E. Orem
63
Ibid., 232.
Ibid., 237.
65
Ibid., 239.
66
Ibid., 248-249.
64
-64-
reported that the operations would end by the morning of February 12 at the latest and
requested that the administration give consideration to any statements it hoped to make
regarding the evacuation.67
Whatever satisfaction the successful evacuation gave administration officials
quickly dissipated when a front page article in the New York Times on February 11
quoted Foreign Minister Yeh saying that the United States had made secret pledges to
defend Quemoy and Matsu.68 Publicly and privately, the administration distanced itself
from the statements in order to salvage the policy of ambiguity. The morning the story
broke, Dulles insisted to Australian diplomats that the United States had made no
commitment whatsoever to the offshore islands and that ―Foreign Minister Yeh had never
made a statement such as attributed to him.‖ The Secretary went on to declare that the
Chinese Communists had expressed no clear interest in Quemoy, only in Taiwan, thus
relating any action on the offshore islands to a broader ―war . . . over Formosa.‖ 69 Five
days later, Dulles gave an address to the Foreign Policy Association in New York City
denying the existence of any defense agreement other than the Mutual Defense Treaty.
As in his correspondence with the Australians, Dulles‘s announcement made clear the
U.S. belief that the Nationalists should not surrender the offshore islands in the face of
unrelenting Chinese Communist aggression. To dispel any more rumors and to give the
administration flexibility in future decision making, Dulles contextualized the portion of
Eisenhower‘s message to Congress which announced that the administration would ―take
into account closely related localities‖ as a statement designed to consider the purpose of
67
Ibid., 249-250.
New York Times, ―Formosa Says U.S. Pledged To Defend All Offshore Isles,‖ February 11, 1955.
Accessed online: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html
69
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 263.
68
-65-
Chinese Communist aggression on the offshores in the context of a Chinese front against
Taiwan.70 In other words, despite denying the existence of any commitments, Dulles
took the opportunity to sit on the fence regarding the likely course of action on the
offshores, allowing him policy flexibility as the crisis continued.
The story intensified pressure from the British to abandon the offshore islands
altogether. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a letter to Eisenhower urging
the United States convince the Nationalists to withdraw from the islands. Claiming that
he could see no decisive relationship between the offshore islands and an invasion of
Taiwan, Churchill declared that the United States could handily defeat the Chinese
Communists without any need for the islands.71 Moreover, Churchill announced his
belief that Chinese claims to seek reclamation of Taiwan were simply boasts. The
Churchill message corresponded with renewed pressure from Eden and other allied
officials who called on the United States to evacuate Quemoy and Matsu and to pursue
diplomacy with the Chinese Communists through channels outside the United Nations.72
Eisenhower and Dulles rebuked the United Kingdom for its recommendations. In
a telephone conversation with Dulles, Eisenhower compared the offshore islands
situation with a hypothetical threat against Hong Kong for which the British would
demand American support. Dulles replied that it seemed London did not appreciate the
gravity of the concessions the administration had already received from Chiang. Dulles
declared that he ―g[ot] Chiang‘s agreement on Formosa treaty; got him to agree to use of
no equipment of people we have trained outside Formosa & the Pescadores; got him to
acquiesce on the UN move for cease-fire; got him to evacuate the Tachens.‖ Dulles did
70
Ibid., 279.
Ibid., 270-273.
72
Ibid., 265.
71
-66-
not expect the United States could wrestle any more concessions from the Nationalists.73
In his reply to Churchill, Eisenhower raised each of the points made by Dulles and
declared that a move to abandon Quemoy would likely not go as the Tachens evacuation
had. Instead, Chiang would backlash by sacrificing huge portions of his army in the
defense of the islands. Eisenhower also stressed that surrendering the islands to the
Chinese Communists at this juncture would only spur further belligerency. In keeping
with the administration‘s fear of emboldening Beijing, Eisenhower compared Communist
behavior during the offshore islands crisis to Hitler‘s behavior on the eve of World War
II.74
The administration spent the remainder of the month in search of a new
diplomatic counterpart to its military strategy. Unwilling to relent to British demands to
pressure Chiang on Quemoy, the president made one final attempt to resolve the issue
diplomatically by convincing Chiang to initiate withdrawal on his own. Roy Howard,
chairman of the executive committee of Scripps-Howard Newspapers, was scheduled to
take a trip Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other areas in the Far East. Eisenhower, recognizing
that Howard would visit in a purely civilian capacity, encouraged him to push Chiang to a
more reasonable position with regard to the offshore islands. In a private meeting,
Eisenhower explained the details of the situation to Howard and expressed the opinion he
hoped Chiang would eventually adopt. Comparing the situation of the offshore islands to
the situation at Dienbienphu where the French tried desperately to hang on to territory
they inevitably lost, Eisenhower hoped that Howard could convince Chiang to adopt the
73
74
Ibid., 276-277.
Ibid., 292-295.
-67-
correct course.75 Once Howard had introduced the idea, Dulles, who had departed for a
tour of the Far East, would add a necessary element of diplomatic pressure.
Eisenhower‘s voluntary withdrawal strategy barely got off the ground before it
collapsed. Unsurprisingly, the ploy failed to elicit a positive response from the insistent
Chiang who dismissed the idea of withdrawal without hesitation. As he had throughout
the crisis, the Taiwanese leader emphasized the importance of the islands for maintaining
Nationalist morale and stressed that he would have difficulty defending the islands with
strictly native troops.76 Dulles, who evidently had authority to decide how to pursue the
president‘s strategy, abandoned the idea of voluntary withdrawal after only a handful of
meetings with the generalissimo.
The cumulative effect of the failed negotiations brought the United States to a
diplomatic dead end. Eisenhower and Dulles expressed mounting frustration at their
inability to resolve the crisis peacefully. In an oft-quoted outburst after the Chinese
Communists refused to partake in the Oracle negotiations, Eisenhower told Press
Secretary James Hagerty that the Chinese communists were ―doing everything they
[could] to try [his] patiences [sic].‖ Declaring that the crisis made remaining calm
difficult, Eisenhower stated that he sometimes thought ―it would be best all around to go
after [the Chinese Communists] right now without letting them pick their time and place
of their own choosing.‖77 Concurrently, Dulles expressed increasing doubt that the
Chinese Communists would ever behave moderately. In his view, the failure of
negotiations demonstrated that the Chinese Communists intended to pursue the conquest
of the offshore islands all the way to Taiwan. When given a reasonable exit from the
75
Ibid., 303-307.
Ibid., 330.
77
Ibid., 202-203.
76
-68-
situation through the U.N. negotiations, the Chinese refused to take it, which bespoke
their true intentions. ―Any assumption that the Chinese Communists might now follow a
more moderate course,‖ Dulles announced to the British, ―would fly in the face of
threatening Chinese Communist words and deeds of the most formidable character.‖78
Drawing comparisons to the situation with Germany in WWII, Dulles believed that
Beijing gave no indication that it actually wanted peace. Like Hitler, who made his
intentions clear without recourse from European powers, Mao had announced his
intentions to retake Taiwan and had demonstrated resolve to do so in the face of
intensifying military pressure from the United States.79
Official estimates of Chinese Communist intentions fueled the administration‘s
increasing concerns that the Chinese would not stop without a war. Though intelligence
reports still indicated that the Chinese Communists would refrain from any course of
action that the CCP believed would initiate a full-scale war, the same reports went on to
express concerns that the Chinese Communists would willingly engage in small-scale
hostilities without understanding the danger of potential escalation. The ―Chinese
Communist attitude with respect to war is bold [and] sometimes boisterous,‖ a late
February Special National Intelligence Estimate concluded. ―The Chinese Communists
are therefore likely to test the upper limits of US tolerance with a variety of substantial
military actions . . . the Chinese Communists may miscalculate the degree of risk which
military actions on their part in this area would entail.‖80
An NSC meeting at the end of the month clearly conveyed a changing tide in the
administration‘s thinking on the offshore islands issue. As the Nationalists lost Nanchi
78
Ibid., 246.
Ibid., 237.
80
Ibid., 274.
79
-69-
Island to another wave of Communist barrages, Admiral Radford reported that the Joint
Chiefs had begun conducting substantial intelligence operations with regard to Chinese
Communist airfields in Fukien province to look for signs of a major military initiative
against Quemoy.81 President Eisenhower in turn responded that the dilemma the United
States now faced was managing a Communist attack. Unable to back down on the
defense of the offshore islands lest the Communists launch an immediate attack, yet
incapable of drawing clear lines around the islands in the face of international pressure,
Eisenhower concluded that ―there was nothing more that we could now do except to
watch the situation as it develops and act on a day-to-day basis.‖82 Radford responded
that the United States would need to be prepared to move quickly if the administration
intended to act on a day-to-day basis. If the Communists launched a major offensive
against Taiwan, the United States would have to take rapid military action in response.
Returning to Nanchi Island, Secretary Humphrey questioned whether the United States
could deter Chinese action there. In a display of his changing attitude toward the Chinese
Communists, President Eisenhower announced that ―no more public statements will do
any good now.‖83 Later in the meeting, the president, with Dulles‘s support, declared that
the possibility for further diplomatic maneuvers through the United Nations had ended.84
Dulles‘s strategy for this phase of the crisis, as intended, embodied the principles
of the New Look. On the one hand, the administration made clear its willingness to
defend Formosa through the Congressional resolution and the ratification of the SinoAmerican Mutual Defense Treaty. Both documents intended to dispel the perception of
81
Ibid., 281.
Ibid., 283.
83
Ibid.
84
Ibid., 285.
82
-70-
weakness that Dulles saw in December while providing the president with enough
freedom to avoid any unnecessary commitments. Concurrently, Dulles hoped that by
pursuing Oracle, he could bring the crisis to a diplomatic end, eliminating the need to
render a final decision on how and when to make good on the commitments enshrined in
the defense treaty. In short, without actually committing substantial military resources to
the Taiwan area, the United States intended to show its resolve in order to convince the
Chinese Communists to back down.
By the end of February, it became apparent to most in the administration that
Dulles‘s approach had failed. Great Britain had expressed nearly universal discontent
with the administration‘s strategy and voiced their opposition to any defense of the
islands. Pounding the final nail in the diplomatic coffin, the Chinese Nationalists had
made all the concessions they appeared willing to make and began resisting any form of
diplomatic solution. In the meantime, the Eisenhower administration saw the Chinese
Communist behavior as unduly reckless and began harboring serious doubts as to the
ability of deterrence to check conflict in the region. Admiral Radford‘s sudden concern
for Chinese military build-ups in Fukien province testified to the growing belief that the
crisis would lead to war.
Moreover, Eisenhower and Dulles began to realize that under the guise of
flexibility, the administration had unintentionally made avoiding that war nearly
impossible. Throughout the first phases of the crisis, Eisenhower and Dulles had refused
to make concrete decisions to defend or abandon the islands, preferring instead to pursue
diplomacy and make concessions where appropriate in an attempt to resolve the crisis
without commitment. As a result, the administration consistently passed up opportunities
-71-
to heed British advice and withdraw from the crisis by engaging in direct diplomacy with
the Chinese. By the end of February, however, the cumulative effect of diplomatic and
military concessions to the British and the Nationalists rendered withdrawal moot. The
United States had already given and taken too much from the Nationalists to simply
abandon the offshore islands entirely and demand their evacuation. By the time Dulles
and Eisenhower concluded that maintaining the existing defensive posture would
culminate in war, they had already passed the point of no return. Dulles‘s homecoming
from his Asia tour in early March would confirm the administration‘s worst war fears and
force it to confront a major conflict with China in the last and most dangerous phase of
the crisis.
-72-
Chapter 4: March-April, 1955
As the crisis entered its penultimate month, the administration‘s assessment of the
situation markedly changed. With diplomacy evidently stalled and Dulles convinced that
the Chinese Communists would launch a major offensive against Taiwan in the coming
weeks, the administration saw flexibility as no longer an option. Since the Chinese had
evidently decided to take Taiwan regardless of American threats or diplomatic offers and
the United States had put too much stake in the maintenance of the offshore islands, the
administration concluded that they had no choice but to brace for the near certainty of
war. Based on available military intelligence, Eisenhower and Dulles concluded that they
would need to use nuclear weapons in order to put a decisive and early end to the coming
conflict. As the administration reached a military decision, it became increasingly wary
of the political consequences of a nuclear strike. Fearful that public outcry would destroy
the psychological value of the defense of Taiwan, the administration set about attempting
to sway international and domestic opinion against the Chinese Communists to justify the
use of tactical nuclear weapons. Within this context, Dulles and Eisenhower issued their
famed nuclear threat against Communist China. When, near the end of March, that threat
met stiff resistance at home and abroad, President Eisenhower took the helm in
constructing a new strategy of diplomacy. Though the strategy ultimately failed, the
administration managed to conclude the offshore islands crisis near the end of April when
Chinese officials offered to negotiate directly with the United States.
-73-
Flexibility Ends
Dulles‘s Asia trip confirmed all of his worst fears about the state of affairs in
Asia. In a series of telegrams to Washington beginning February 21, 1955, Dulles
conveyed back to Washington an increasing degree of frustration with the situation in
Asia. In his first telegram, Dulles reported that he had clarified to Commander-in-Chief,
U.S. Pacific Command (CINCPAC) that the United States would ―do everything feasible
to enable the Nationalists themselves to hold Matsu and Quemoy islands without need for
direct United States intervention.‖ In order to make the U.S. presence felt, Dulles
recommended rotating significant military elements around the China area. Though
hesitant of the implications of a military buildup, Dulles made clear his mounting fears.
He declared himself ―impressed by the Communist program of steady build-up airfields,
artillery emplacements and roads which would be required to take the Matsus and
Quemoy islands‖ and commented that he believed the United States had needlessly
restrained the Nationalists from preventing this buildup. Dulles then suggested that if the
build-up continued without interruption, ―the Quemoy islands [would become]
indefensible in the absence of massive US intervention, perhaps with atomic weapons.‖
Still wary of the possible use of nuclear bombs, Dulles argued for allowing the
Nationalists to attack Communist air build-ups to prevent an inevitable attack.1 Though
Dulles did not go so far as to recommend the use of atomic weapons, his February 21
telegram marked the first point during the crisis in which Dulles seriously considered
nuclear weapons as a military necessity.2 Having only begun his tour, Dulles had
1
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 299-300.
Though Dulles seldom discussed a possible nuclear strike at any point prior to February, on those
occasions where he did, he referred to the possibility as remote. See for example, ibid., 90.
2
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already started to conclude that the United States had run out of options to resolve the
crisis.
By February 25, Dulles abandoned any hope for diplomacy and announced his
belief that the crisis would culminate in a general war with China. ―Whereas up to a few
weeks ago we had believed Chinese Communists were not seriously intending to take
Taiwan by force,‖ he declared, ―we now believe they intend do so. So in fact we are in a
battle for Taiwan.‖ Later in the same telegram, Dulles fully renounced the possibility of
negotiation. After briefly summarizing the administration‘s previous attempts with
regard to the islands, Dulles wrote that ―[d]espite all these actions Chinese Communists
still give every evidence intention take Taiwan by force and no indication willingness to
seek possible settlement . . . thus we have reached situation where line of retreat nears its
end.‖3 The secretary of state also reiterated the administration‘s view of the importance
of maintaining the islands. Recent events in Japan had given Dulles a pessimistic view
on American power projection in the Far East. The best available predictions for the
Japanese election scheduled for February 27 had two Japanese socialist groups winning
over one-third of the seats in the national Diet. Taken by itself, the result would indicate
a decline in regional pro-American sentiment. More troubling for Dulles, however, was
that the outcome of the election would bode poorly for the administration‘s plans to
secure an amendment to the Japanese constitution authorizing rearmament in order to
challenge Beijing‘s regional hegemony.4 Given the likely election results, Dulles
believed that a further retreat in the Taiwan straits risked solidifying the bourgeoning
3
4
Ibid. 307-308. Emphasis added.
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 23, Part 1. 26.
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Communist influence in Japan. The United States simply could not afford to cede any
ground to the Chinese communists.5
In Dulles‘s thinking, the Chinese Communists had signaled their intention to take
Taiwan Island. Meeting with Eden in Asia later that afternoon, Dulles declared that
Chinese Communist action against Quemoy and Matsu served only as a precursor to an
invasion of Taiwan. Consequently, making concessions to the Chinese Communists such
as encouraging the Republic of China to abandon the offshore islands would serve only to
facilitate the on-going Chinese Communist military buildup by freeing up resources in
Amoy and Fuchow harbors. Such a move would make possible a massive sea attack on
Taiwan which would significantly improve the Communist‘s military position.6 Because
of the Communist‘s intentions, therefore, Dulles concluded it imprudent for the United
States to make any further concessions.
Washington began taking action on Dulles‘s suggestions by preparing for a
conventional defense of Taiwan that involved a substantial American commitment. On
February 25, Admiral Radford expressed concerns that the Department of Defense was
transferring military materials for the defense of Taiwan at routine pace. ―It is
important,‖ Radford commented, ―that our logistic support of the Chinese Nationalist
Forces be directly and immediately related to the exigencies of the present military
situation,‖ and that the Defense Department not rely on ―currently approved MDAP
[Major Defense Acquisition Programs] programs.‖7 By March 6, it appeared apparent
that the standard D.O.D. program would not suffice. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral
5
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 308. The administration‘s predictions of the election results proved almost
precisely accurate.
6
Ibid., 311.
7
Ibid., 313. An MDAP program (usually written redundantly) refers to a DOD project expected to require
substantial expenditures.
-76-
Robert B. Carney, with support from the Secretary of State, began negotiating a new
defense plan with the Chinese Nationalists. Shortly into negotiations, Carney convinced
the Nationalists to relinquish primary command of operations to the United States.8 From
there, Carney negotiated the specifics of a new defense system. In a show of his
pessimism about the ability of Nationalist forces to hold the islands without American
assistance, Carney responded to Nationalist requests for more planes by pointing out the
need for more expansive measures. ―Mere delivery of planes was not the answer,‖ he
pointed out. ―There must be effective parallel programs to meet such functions as early
warning, intercept, A.A. [presumably anti-aircraft] protection and various aspects of
logistical support.‖ Because Nationalist forces, even with U.S. support, could not meet
the demands of these programs within a reasonable time, Carney concluded that, pending
approval from the President, the United States Air Force would have to take over the air
defense of Taiwan.9 Carney agreed, however, to leave naval defenses in Nationalist
hands.
When Dulles returned from Asia on March 6, he recommended that the United
States use atomic weapons in the defense of the offshore islands. In a private meeting
with Eisenhower, Dulles went over the conclusions he reached during his tour abroad.
After stressing again the psychological importance of maintaining the island positions,
Dulles announced that the best possible course involved taking concrete measures to
defend the offshore islands from the coming Communist assault. He then reiterated his
belief that the defense of Quemoy and Matsu would necessitate atomic weapons.
Without hesitation, President Eisenhower ―thoroughly agreed‖ to Dulles‘s suggestion and
8
9
Ibid., 332.
Ibid., 334.
-77-
added that United States military deployments in Asia lacked the necessary planes and
support materials needed to destroy Chinese Communist airfields and gun emplacements.
The President also suggested putting into Dulles‘s proposed television address
summarizing his Asian trip ―a paragraph indicating that [the United States] would use
atomic weapons as interchangeable with the conventional weapons.‖10
Though the meeting between the president and his secretary did not last long, it
marked the beginning of the administration‘s decision to use and threaten to use nuclear
weapons to resolve the offshore islands crisis. Over the next few weeks, President
Eisenhower and his staff settled a number of questions relating to the nuclear decision
including when, why and how to attack the Chinese Communists using the nuclear
arsenal. Concurrently, the administration debated the political and psychological
consequences of using nuclear weapons. A close examination of the administration‘s
decision making demonstrates that Eisenhower identified a material necessity for using
atomic weapons but became nervous about the potential damage a limited nuclear strike
against China would do to U.S. national interests at home and abroad. As a result, the
president and secretary of state gave a number of speeches announcing their intention to
use atomic weapons to resolve the crisis with the intent of priming international public
opinion for the possibility of a nuclear first strike. These speeches were not primarily
intended to threaten China, but served instead to convince the international public that the
use of tactical nuclear weapons against China was not an act of unwarranted aggression.
When contextualized by internal administration discussions, Dulles‘s and Eisenhower‘s
speeches no longer appear as exemplars of a nuclear strategy laid out by the New Look
10
Ibid., 336-337.
-78-
doctrine. Instead, those speeches appear as part of a broader campaign to prime public
opinion for an inevitable nuclear conflict.
Understanding the Nuclear Decision: When, Why and How to Attack
Before the administration could announce its decision to use nuclear weapons, it
needed to assess if, how, when, and why it intended to use them. A CINCPAC
intelligence estimate given February 18, 1955 offers insight into the administration‘s
estimate of a likely Chinese Communist offensive against Formosa. Published near the
beginning of Dulles‘s Far East trip, the report signaled the beginning of a change in
administration thinking regarding the material aspects of a defense of Quemoy. The
report estimated that, given the condition of the Chinese Communist navy and the
geography of the offshore islands, the Chinese Communists would need to gain air
superiority before launching any major offensive. Though the People‘s Liberation Army
(PLA) had substantial air capabilities via airfields in the triangle of Shanghai-HangchowNingpo, a major, sustained offensive would require capabilities located closer to the
offshore islands. The report located such a facility in Fukien province. While the
Chinese had taken no significant action to activate that airfield, a substantial move to
occupy air facilities there would provide the PLA with ―excellent‖ air coverage over all
of the offshore islands.11
In a meeting on March 11, Eisenhower and his top officials took the conclusions
reached in the CINCPAC report and concluded that a successful counteroffensive would
necessitate the use of nuclear weapons. Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining
11
CINCPAC, ―Intelligence Estimate: Chinese Communist and Chinese Nationalist Capabilities and
Probably Courses of Action with Respect to Chin-men, Matsu and Nan-Chi Islands through Mid-1956,‖
report no. 10-55, March 11, 1955, International Series: AWF, DDEL.
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summarized the situation at the start of the meeting by stating that ―it was obvious that
the Chincoms were not going to attack Formosa at this time, because there had not been a
sufficient build-up of mainland airfields.‖12 From that starting point, President
Eisenhower assessed that the United States and the Chinese Nationalists could
successfully defend the offshores using conventional weapons until such point that the
Communists mobilized airfields at Fukien. In his view, with logistical support the
Chinese Nationalists could establish an accurate and threatening counter-battery force on
Quemoy Island capable of resisting heavy artillery offensives. When the question came
to defending against a massive Communist air offensive, however, the assessment
became more pessimistic. Admiral Carney expressed the view that the United States and
Taiwan had neither established sufficient communication channels nor adequately
established an anti-aircraft defense around the offshore islands.13 Eisenhower responded
by announcing that the United States should seek to improve the conventional air defense
of Taiwan but that intervention ―with conventional weapons . . . might not be decisive[.]
. . . [T]he time might come,‖ he cautioned ―when the U.S. might have to intervene with
atomic weapons.‖14 On that day, however, the president remained optimistic about the
prospect of avoiding a nuclear war. ―If pushed to it,‖ he stated, ―we would intervene with
conventional weapons.‖ Since conventional intervention might not prove decisive,
Eisenhower tentatively proposed using atomic weapons to end the conflict if it did not die
down of its own accord. 15 In a show of this optimism, he concluded the meeting by
12
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 357.
Ibid., 358.
14
Ibid., 359.
15
―Notes Taken During Meeting 11 March 1955,‖ March 16, 1955, NSC Series: AWF, DDEL.
13
-80-
posing a series of questions for his staff to direct to Admiral Felix Stump, Commander of
U.S. Pacific Command about the possibility of avoiding a direct U.S. intervention.
The admiral responded to the president‘s inquiries in a memorandum on March 15
in which he confirmed the conclusions of the CINCPAC report and decisively
recommended the use of nuclear weapons. The admiral‘s report marked a turning point
in administration thinking on the issue. In his estimate, the location and strength of
Chinese Communist air power was ―the key determinant of their capability, and also the
necessity for U.S. intervention.‖16 Absent a redeployment of Communist air assets,
―ChiNat action supported by U.S. conventional operations would give a high degree of
assurance against loss of the islands.‖17 Throughout his response, Admiral Stump
emphasized that ―as long as the CHINATS maintain air superiority within the two areas
. . . they [would] be able to deter – but not stop – a determined CHICOM effort.‖ With
the addition of American conventional support, the admiral estimated that the
Nationalists could hold the islands ―indefinitely.‖ He also stressed that, in order to
launch an ―all-out offensive,‖ the Chinese Communists would need to significantly
redeploy their air assets to the Fukien airfields, which would likely give the United States
a three to five day warning time. In the event that such redeployment took place, the
United States would need to use its nuclear assets. Stump‘s report resolutely encouraged
the president to authorize nuclear weapons use in such an event, stating ―should the
16
17
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 367.
Ibid. Emphasis original.
-81-
CHICOMs employ full air strength, the use of SHANDS weapons could not be long
delayed without jeopardizing ultimate victory.‖18
Concurrent with Stump‘s report on the necessity of atomic weapons, a March 16
National Intelligence Estimate reaffirmed the pessimistic mood regarding the likelihood
of war. Although the report found no evidence of a major military buildup, it concluded
that the Chinese Communist government already had ―the capability to seize the Quemoy
and Matsu groups‖ absent U.S. assistance and that the Communist government would
likely undertake such operations since it regarded the eventual elimination of the Chinese
Nationalists as essential.19
The report also cautioned against attempting to deter the Chinese Communists.
CCP military leaders were likely to underestimate the willingness of the United States to
respond with significant force. Even if the United States did undertake a localized
military action, the Chinese Communists would not assess major hostilities from the
United States as a likely outcome to further probing operations designed ultimately to
seize the offshore islands and eventually Taiwan.20
Members of administration took quickly to the pessimistic revaluation of the
situation. Though Secretary Wilson expressed an occasional and tentative optimism for
the prospect of deterrence, he agreed with Stump that the Chinese Communists were
undertaking a military buildup and would quickly gain the capacity to strike against
Quemoy. He also conceded that his optimism in deterrence might be unfounded. ―The
Chinese Communists,‖ he declared, ―[were] likely to believe that political considerations
18
Memorandum of conversation between Colonel Andrew Goodpaster and Admiral Stump, March 15,
1955, International Series: AWF, DDEL. The precise meaning of SHANDS weapons is unclear; by
context, however it refers to some type of nuclear device.
19
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 376-380.
20
Ibid.
-82-
. . . would inhibit the U.S. from reacting militarily.‖ 21 Admiral Radford concurred with
Stump‘s report and conveyed a firm belief in the rapid need for action. In his opinion,
photo reconnaissance had not detected a buildup around Fukien airfield because the
United States had not dedicated sufficient resources to intelligence gathering. He
concluded that the administration should accordingly assume that the Chinese
Communists ―[were] getting ready just as fast as they [could].‖22 Dulles, whose
pessimism spurred much of the reevaluation, likewise concurred that the situation
appeared dire.23
Other members of Eisenhower‘s military staff expressed the firm belief that
knocking out enemy airfields would require the use of atomic weapons. In the same
meeting where the NSC discussed the troubling developments in the Taiwan Straits,
Colonel Lucius D. Clay presented a generalized oral report to the NSC announcing that
the United States would have to employ nuclear weapons in an assault against hostile
enemy airfields. When the president expressed doubt regarding the ability of the United
States to rely solely on nuclear weapons, General Twining reaffirmed Clay‘s original
report. Citing other studies, Twining declared that the use of at least some nuclear
weapons would prove enormously helpful.24
By this point, even the president had abandoned his former optimism that nuclear
weapons could be reserved for the end of a conflict. He expressed the opinion that the
Chinese Communists ―would in all probability not renounce [attempts to reclaim
Formosa.]‖ When questioned by Stassen about the desirability of a study on the best
21
Ibid., 385-386.
Ibid., 391.
23
Ibid.
24
Memorandum of Discussion at the 242d Meeting of the National Security Council, March 24, 1955:
Effective Bombing of Hostile Airfields, NSC Series: AWF, DDEL.
22
-83-
means to destroy military emplacements on the Chinese Communist side, Eisenhower
responded negatively. ―It would be next to impossible,‖ he announced ―to take out these
gun emplacements without resort to nuclear weapons.‖25 Though the president remained
cautiously hopeful that the United States could avoid hostilities, he noted in his diary that
―there ha[d] been a very definite feeling among the members of the Cabinet, often openly
expressed, that within a month we will actually be fighting in the Formosa straits.‖26
The conclusions reached during the month of March convinced the Eisenhower
administration that the United States should prepare for an inevitable military defense of
Taiwan involving atomic weapons. By the end of the month, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had
drawn up war plans for eventual hostilities over the Taiwan straits which involved use of
precision nuclear weapons on military targets.27 From the evidence, the JCS plan likely
targeted the Fukien airfield and gun emplacements near the coast. Had the crisis not
reached a peaceful resolution, therefore, it appears likely that the Eisenhower
administration would have launched a nuclear first strike against the Chinese
Communists for tactical reasons.
Understanding the Nuclear Decision: The Public Announcement
As the administration contemplated how it intended to conduct a war against the
Chinese Communists, it confronted the problem of popular and international reaction to
an American nuclear strike against the People‘s Republic. As Dulles and Eisenhower
discussed their changing views of the situation in early March, they feared an armed
clash with the Chinese Communists would trigger a backlash in Europe where the
25
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2, 390.
Ibid., 405.
27
Ibid., 432.
26
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administration officials were attempting to finalize the Paris Accords to grant West
Germany full sovereignty and NATO membership.28 While Dulles hoped to delay
conflict in the Taiwan straits to avoid disrupting the situation in Europe, he recognized
that in the event that the president would have to respond to a threat immediately, the
administration would need to take steps to ensure global preparation for an American
military action against China.29 He feared that the administration ―might wake up one
day and discover [itself] inhibited in the use of [atomic] weapons by a negative public
opinion‖ and argued for an immediate need to take steps ―to create a better public climate
for the use of atomic weapons by the United States.‖ If the United States intended to
have a free hand to use atomic weapons within the next month or two, he and the
president would need to attune public opinion to such a possibility.30
A National Intelligence Estimate confirmed Dulles and Eisenhower‘s fears about
the public consequences of an atomic strike against China. ―The predominant world
reaction,‖ the report put bluntly, ―would be one of shock.‖ The estimate cautioned that
reactions would prove particularly adverse if the United States dropped atomic weapons
against military concentrations prior to an all-out Chinese offensive. Offering some hope
to the administration, the report observed that the United States could minimize
international outcry by exercising some degree of nuclear restraint and swaying world
opinion against the Chinese Communists. ―Certain Asian and European allies,‖ the
authors estimated ―might condone the tactical use of nuclear weapons by the US provided
that they were convinced such weapons were necessary to stop an actual invasion to
Taiwan and that the US was exercising the utmost restraint and attempting to spare
28
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2, 353-355.
Ibid., 358.
30
Ibid., 347.
29
-85-
civilians.‖ 31 In other words, a clever public relations campaign could convince world
opinion that the United States had no other choice but to use its atomic weapons.
The campaign to soften the political blow of an atomic strike involved two
components. The first involved issuing a series of statements designed to portray tactical
nuclear weapons as weapons of restraint similar to conventional bombs. Dulles‘s March
8 radio address, intended to summarize the results of his Asia trip, gave the first mention
of nuclear weapons. In that speech, he referred to ―new and powerful weapons of
precision, which [could] utterly destroy military targets without endangering unrelated
civilian centers.‖32 When President Eisenhower authorized Dulles to make that
announcement, he instructed him that the purpose was to paint ―atomic weapons as
interchangeable with conventional weapons,‖ but that the United States would not use
―weapons of mass destruction.‖33 Dulles accomplished both by stressing that the bombs
would only strike at military targets. At a press conference seven days later Dulles
reiterated the idea that the administration saw tactical nuclear weapons as weapons of
restraint. Characterized by the New York Times as ―a doctrine of less-than-massive
retaliation,‖ Dulles described the use of ―small nuclear weapons against military targets‖
which would not destroy cities. Furthermore, Dulles distinguished between an attack
aimed strictly at the offshore islands and one designed with an eye toward Taiwan. To
show that the administration approached the crisis cautiously, Dulles declared that against
the former, ―the United States might take no military action;‖ against the latter, however,
―the United States might well intervene using sea and air forces equipped with small and
31
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 379.
Elie Abel, ―Dulles Warns Communist China U.S. Will Meet Force with Force,‖ New York Times, March
9, 1955.
33
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 337.
32
-86-
precise nuclear weapons.‖ Near the end of the press conference, another reporter again
queried the secretary of state regarding the American response to an assault on the
offshore islands. Though Dulles declared that ―some ambiguity about the United States
reaction was inevitable,‖ he stated bluntly that if the attack were accompanied by
evidence of a broader assault on Taiwan, the likely course of action would involve the
president ordering an air and sea attack against mainland Chinese military targets. 34
The day after Dulles‘s press conference, President Eisenhower gave his press
conference where he famously equated the use of atomic weapons to the ―use of a bullet
or anything else.‖ Far from a major endorsement of the strategy of massive retaliation,
the president‘s answer came in response to a reporter‘s question about Dulles‘s
statements regarding ―tactical small atomic weapons.‖ Prior to endorsing the secretary‘s
statements, Eisenhower made it clear that he only intended to use nuclear weapons like a
bullet in combat situations ―where [they could] be used on strictly military targets and for
strictly military purposes.‖35 In short, both Eisenhower and Dulles emphasized the
restraint in American policy and that the use of atomic weapons against Communist
China would come as the last stop in the defense of Taiwan.
The second component of the strategy involved gaining the moral high ground by
representing China as a reckless aggressor. Accompanying the administration‘s public
announcement of its willingness to use nuclear weapons, Dulles engaged in a flurry of
efforts to persuade the international public and American allies that Chinese Communist
aggression toward the offshore islands represented the beginnings of an assault on
Taiwan. In the same press conference in which Dulles announced American nuclear
34
Elie Abel, ―Dulles Says U.S. Pins Retaliation on Small A-Bomb: Less-than-Massive Policy in Event of
War Bars Use of City-Destroying Weapons,‖ New York Times, March 16, 1955.
35
Eisenhower, Public Papers of the Presidents, 332.
-87-
intentions, he also expounded upon the threat he believed the Chinese Communists
posed. He declared that he had returned from the Far East with ―a certain sense of
foreboding‖ that the Communists would continue to behave aggressively. ―It would
seem as though . . . the Chinese Communists do not intend to stop until it is apparent that
they are stopped by superior resistance.‖.36 Dulles also distinguished the recklessness of
the Chinese from the cold calculations of the Soviets. While the Soviet method might
prove more formidable in the long term, Dulles declared that the Chinese Communist
method would prove ―more dangerous and provocative‖ in the short term.37 In private
meetings with the British, Dulles emphasized that aside from the issue of Quemoy ―there
[was] no real difference between the US and the UK‖ regarding a policy aimed at
defending Taiwan. Dulles stressed that the administration‘s ―only interest in the offshore
islands [was] their relevance to the defense of Formosa.‖38 In a meeting with the Indian
Defense Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, who would represent India at the Chinese hosted
Asian-African Conference in Bandung held in April, Dulles stressed that ―the choice of
war or peace rested with Peking.‖ Reiterating the points from his earlier speech, Dulles
expressed to the Indian minister a belief that the Chinese Communists constituted a
―greater danger to world peace today than the Soviet Union.‖39
Having initiated their relations campaign to preempt popular backlash, the
administration hoped to spend the remainder of the month preparing for the coming
major Communist offensive against the offshore islands and searching for a means to
36
Elie Abel, ―Dulles Says U.S. Pins Retaliation on Small A-Bomb: Less-than-Massive Policy in Event of
War Bars Use of City-Destroying Weapons,‖ New York Times, March 16, 1955.
37
Dulles, ―An Estimate of Chinese Communist Intentions,‖ speech before Advertising Club of New York,
New York, March 21, 1955 Department of State Bulletin, 32. Washington D.C.: Office of Media Services
(hereafter DSB). 551-552.
38
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 365-366.
39
Ibid., 392-393.
-88-
somehow resolve the crisis. In a private meeting, Dulles, Wilson, and Radford worked to
outline three policies they hoped the administration would adopt over the coming weeks.
First, they wanted to inform the Chinese Communists through diplomatic channels of the
United States intention to defend Quemoy and Matsu. Although Secretary Dulles
appeared supportive of the idea, he quickly concluded that the president would not take a
public stance on the islands until the crisis actually came to a head. Since they could not
achieve that, the leaders agreed on the second component, that the United States should
make a public announcement to the effect that it would suspend further proposed
reductions in the strength of U.S. military forces in the region until the crisis ended. The
purpose of the announcement fit within the general scheme of showing seriousness while
generating supportive world opinion. By ―convincing the Communists of the seriousness
of [U.S.] intention,‖ Dulles hoped to increase ―free-world pressure against the Chinese
Communists.‖ Halting regional force reductions, he believed, would bring U.S. actions
in line with the statements he had made regarding the willingness to use nuclear weapons.
Finally, all three leaders agreed that the Joint Chiefs should take any necessary steps to
prepare for the defense of Taiwan. Admiral Radford expressed a fear that the Chinese
would launch a ―Pearl Harbor type attack‖ which would spur a Congressional inquiry ―as
to where the responsibility lay for the set-back. It was important,‖ he concluded, ―that
the record be clear that the US, in light of a pre-Pearl Harbor type of situation where an
attack might be expected, had taken every precaution‖ to ensure national security.
Proposed steps included building up Nationalist airbases to ensure the survivability of
U.S. retaliatory capability.40 In short, the strategy envisioned by Dulles, Wilson, and
40
Ibid., 400-404.
-89-
Radford primarily involved preparations for the coming war in which the administration
would make good on its nuclear commitments.
Events shortly after the Dulles, Wilson, and Radford meeting, however, forced the
administration to seriously reconsider its strategy. A leaked interview with Admiral
Carney stated that the administration expected to see a war by mid-April. The result
produced a nationwide war-scare that threatened to divide Congress. Confronted with
pressing domestic concerns, President Eisenhower took full control of the situation
during what ended up being the final phase of the crisis. Throughout the month of April,
the president attempted to resolve the crisis through last-minute diplomatic ploys to
compel Chiang to abandon the offshore islands.
The Crisis Ends
The administration‘s nuclear threats did not have their anticipated effect. The
press immediately interpreted the remarks as a bluff designed to deter the Chinese by
tacitly suggesting a massive strike. A New York Times article published after Dulles‘s
March 8 conference denied the possibility of precision strikes against China, stating
―there are no really new missiles or other precision means of delivery available in the Far
East . . . Moreover, many of the Chinese Communist military installations are close to
large cities.‖41 Other media echoed the Times, suggesting that the statements fit within a
general principle of massive retaliation designed to deter the Chinese Communists.
Shortly after the president‘s March 16 press conference, the Christian Science Monitor
questioned the existence of precision weapons and accused Eisenhower of repeating
Truman‘s mistake in Korea. The article chided the administration for underestimating
41
Hanson W. Baldwin, ―The Dulles Report: An Analysis of 4 Major Points Made by the Secretary to
Impress the Asians,‖ New York Times, March 10, 1955.
-90-
Chinese military potential and risking a major and unwelcome war in the Far East.42 On
March 20, the New York Times again repeated its questioning regarding the existence of
precision weapons. Citing military experts, the Times stated that the large blast radius of
even the smallest atomic bomb necessarily threatened nearby civilian populations. The
article also questioned the feasibility of a limited atomic war, suggesting that the use of
tactical nuclear weapons would open the gate to the use of increasingly powerful atomic
bombs.43 A Washington Post column also questioned the existence of such precision
weapons and pointed out that ―world public opinion . . . does not recognize the fine
distinction between different types of atomic bombs.‖44
The popular position that any tactical nuclear strike involved massive retaliation
contributed to a war scare when, in late March, a rash of newspaper headlines, evidently
based on a private dinner given by Admiral Carney, declared that the administration
expected to go to war with China by the middle of April. A New York Times article
from March 26 declared that the administration anticipated an all-out assault from the
Chinese Communists by April 15. Based on previous statements and a frank assessment
of the military situation, the report concluded that President Eisenhower would likely use
nuclear weapons in response to such aggression.45 The Christian Science Monitor and
Washington Post followed with similar articles.46 Since most of these papers had already
42
Joseph C. Harsch, ―State of the Nations: Formosa – the Unmentioned Factor,‖ Christian Science
Monitor, March 18, 1955.
43
New York Times ―The World: The Tactical Bomb,‖ March 20, 1955.
44
Joseph Alsop, ―Matter of Fact . . . ‗Keeping them Guessing,‘‖ The Washington Post and Times Herald,
March 23, 1955.
45
Anthony Levieros, ―Policy Restudied: Eisenhower May State Get-Tough Decision at Coming Talks,‖
New York Times March 26, 1955.
46
William H. Stringer, ―The Washington Scene: Checkmating Red China,‖ Christian Science Monitor,
March 28, 1955; Washington Post and Times Herald, ―Atomic War of Matsu?‖ March 29, 1955.
-91-
dismissed the idea of precision atomic strikes, the prospect of such an attack sparked
fears that the president intended to initiate a general war with Communist China.
The popular war scare proceeded to divide Congress. On March 28, the New
York Times ran an article declaring that, in response to Carney‘s leaked statements, key
Republican leaders in the Senate, William Knowland and Styles Bridges, had begun
demanding an ―all-out‖ defense of Quemoy and Matsu exceeding the restrained policy
outlined earlier by the president.47 Two days later, top Senate Democrats, including
Lyndon B. Johnson and Walter George, accused Senate Republicans of engaging in ―war
talk‖ and urged the president to put an end to the reckless warmongering in Congress.
Facing a divided Congress, Eisenhower attempted unsuccessfully to reconcile
congressional differences and to correct statements given by Admiral Carney. On March
30, the president held a press conference in which he equated the popular prediction of
war to impossible prophecies. He reiterated the position taken during previous press
conferences regarding restrained nuclear use in the possible event of conflict, and
stressed the difficulties involved with stationing substantial conventional assets around
Taiwan.48 That same day, the president held a bipartisan luncheon meeting with
members of Congress. At the meeting, Eisenhower confessed that the offshore islands
crisis was the most difficult issue he had faced since taking office. Democratic leaders,
represented by the belligerent House Majority Leader John W. McCormack,
acknowledged the difficult decision and declared that the power vested in the president
by the Formosa Resolution meant that he and other Democrats would support whatever
47
48
New York Times ―Biggest Barriers to Big Four Talks Believed Removed,‖ March 28, 1955.
Eisenhower, Public Papers of the Presidents, 369-370.
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course Eisenhower choose to follow.49 Despite offering to ultimately stand behind the
president, Democratic leadership continued to make known their distaste with a hardline
policy. Officials in the Democratic National Committee, the New York Times reported,
―[did] not really maintain secrecy . . . about the fact that they . . . had anxieties from the
start about the unquestioning Democratic attitude in Congress over Formosa.‖
Eisenhower‘s former presidential rival, Adlai Stevenson, took to the lead in criticizing the
president‘s Taiwan policy as risking an unwelcome war.50
Internationally, key American allies took poorly to the administration‘s move
toward a policy of nuclear intervention. Throughout March, British officials, who had
urged the president to abandon the offshore islands from the beginning, increasingly
voiced their opposition. Shortly after Dulles‘s March 15 press conference, Ambassador
Makins handed Dulles a short memo declaring that a policy of American military
intervention would only benefit the Chinese Communists. The Chinese Communists, the
British believed, intended to exploit American saber-rattling to ―frighten the Asian
[nations] into China‘s arms.‖ Makins concluded the memo with a firm call for
withdrawal from the islands.51 Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies also criticized
the administration‘s policy and put forward a proposal to convince Chiang to voluntarily
give up the offshore islands.52 Later in the month, Canadian Secretary of State for
External Affairs, Lester Pearson, delivered a speech to the Canadian House of Commons
49
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 428.
William S. White, ―Foreign Policy Dilemma Confronting the Democrats,‖ New York Times, April 10,
1955.
51
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 374-375.
52
Ibid., 370-371.
50
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in which he declared that an American defensive intervention could ―have a chain
reaction of unforeseen consequences.‖53
With international and domestic trends running counter to the confrontational
policy established during March, Eisenhower forced United States policy onto a more
diplomatic course that attempted to persuade the Nationalists to voluntarily withdrawal
from their forward positions. On April 1, Eisenhower called his cabinet together to
discuss a JCS recommendation to send 10,000 U.S. troops to Taiwan for manning antiaircraft equipment. Rather than discuss the JCS proposal, however, Eisenhower began
the meeting by summarizing the offshore islands predicament and announced that he
hoped to avoid American intervention since it would receive little to no support from
U.S. allies and would divide public opinion. Instead, he suggested that the United States
offer the Nationalists certain deployments of U.S. troops in exchange for the voluntary
evacuation of Quemoy and Matsu.54 Despite objections from Admiral Radford,
Eisenhower committed to the new strategy by April 4.55
On April 5, the president sent out a lengthy memo detailing his suggestion. To
commit the United States to an active defense of the offshore islands, he argued, would
commit U.S. military prestige to a divisive war that had limited prospects of stabilizing
the situation. In a dramatic reversal of opinion, Eisenhower concluded that the Chinese
Communists would not likely back down even after a successful defensive campaign. On
the other hand, Eisenhower noted that a refusal to defend the islands would devastate
Nationalist morale and call into question the credibility of American defensive
53
Lester B. Pearson, Statement in the Canadian House of Commons, March 24, 1955, White House
Memoranda Series: Dulles Papers, DDEL.
54
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 439-441.
55
Ibid., 444-445.
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commitments in the region. ―The only logical course of action,‖ he argued ―[was] to
attempt to bring about reasonable changes in the situation rather than to remain inert
awaiting the inevitable moment of decision between two unacceptable choices.‖ To
undertake such a policy, Eisenhower proposed watering down American and Nationalist
commitments to the offshore islands and negotiating an eventual Nationalist withdrawal.
Accompanied by increased military cooperation between the United States and the
Republic of China, the negotiations would offer improved defenses as compensation for
Nationalist concessions on the islands. Eisenhower concluded his memo by noting that
use of a skilled American negotiator would prove paramount to the entire operation.56
After some deliberation, he selected Major General Walter Robertson and Admiral
Radford for the mission, rationalizing that as staunch Nationalist supporters, both
officials would have considerable sway with Chiang.
The president‘s new approach marked a radical departure from the hardline
strategy pursued during March and an attempt to return to the more flexible approaches
pursued during the earlier phases of the crisis. On April 8, Admirals Stump and Carney
called on the president to authorize Nationalist airstrikes against inland Chinese
Communist airfields. As they had in March, the two admirals stressed the possibility of a
Chinese Communist air buildup and argued that, absent a U.S. nuclear strike, a
conventional Chinese Nationalist strike would at least hamper Communist military
developments and bolster Nationalist morale.57 Convinced that military action would
only alienate world opinion, Eisenhower summarily dismissed the idea, much to Admiral
56
57
Ibid., 445-450.
Ibid., 471-473.
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Carney‘s chagrin.58 Evidently, Eisenhower judged that in the event of an all-out Chinese
Communist attack, the United States would have to launch an attack against Communist
airfields. Approving smaller raids against those airfields in the interim could only harm
the prospects for settling the issue peacefully. Though the president remained committed
to the use of nuclear weapons should conflict erupt, he opted to back away from making
those commitments public when he faced domestic and international political challenges.
Eisenhower concluded that the strictly hardline approach advocated by Admiral Radford
had nearly created a domestic crisis. Publically reaffirming defensive commitments or
encouraging aggressive military behavior could only serve to hurt the chances of success
through diplomacy. Since he had already made the military decision to respond to an allout Chinese offensive with nuclear weapons, he saw no need in further publicizing that
decision given the reaction it had received.
Shortly before Robertson and Radford left for their diplomatic mission, however,
the nature of their goal dramatically shifted. On April 17, at a meeting in Augusta,
Georgia, Secretary Dulles presented the president with a paper composed the day before
by him, Robertson, Radford, and a handful of other top policy staff. The proposal
recommended that the Nationalists agree to an American-assisted total evacuation of all
troops and civilians from Quemoy and Matsu. In exchange for that concession from
Chiang, the United States would agree to institute a blockade around 500 miles of
Chinese mainland coast, blocking the seaborne flow of military supplies to the People‘s
Republic. Additionally, the United States would substantially increase its military
presence around Taiwan by deploying new antiaircraft equipment, marines and atomiccapable air units around the island. Dulles believed that the U.S. refusal to condone
58
Ibid., 475-476.
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Nationalist raids on Chinese Communist buildups before or after evacuation necessitated
a concession from Washington. Blockading the mainland would serve as a face-saving
concession for Chiang and significantly slow military buildups at Fukien airfield, which
proved difficult to supply by land. Simultaneously, the blockade would allow the United
States to withdraw from all nonessential military commitments to any territory aside from
Taiwan. After some hesitation and a few minor modifications, Eisenhower agreed to
Dulles‘s proposal and offered to personally approve of the agreement with Chiang in a
high level meeting in San Francisco.59
Radford and Robertson‘s diplomatic mission to Taiwan began a few days after the
Augusta meeting and they met with resistance from the Chinese Nationalists to U.S.
proposals. In their discussions with Chiang, the diplomats made a number of blunders
which likely doomed whatever chance the plan had for success. When describing the
nature of the quid-pro-quo, Robertson failed to mention the element of reinforced U.S.
military presence accompanying the blockade. Likewise, when describing the
withdrawal from the offshore islands, Robertson announced that the president did not
intend to defend Quemoy or Matsu in the event of a major military assault but failed to
mention that the United States would still defend Taiwan and the Pescadores. Robertson
thus unintentionally inspired fears in the Nationalist leadership that the United States had
massively watered down its defensive commitments. Unsurprisingly, Chiang
emphatically rejected the offer.
60
Subsequent meetings with the generalissimo made no
progress and the mission was called off shortly after.61
59
Ibid., 491-495.
Ibid., 510-517.
61
Ibid., 521; 522-523; 528
60
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If the Robertson-Radford mission failed to resolve the crisis in the way the
president had hoped, the Chinese Communists offered to put an abrupt end to the crisis at
the Bandung Conference. On April 23 and 24, likely in response to friendly diplomatic
encouragement from Chinese allies at the Bandung conference – rather than successful
nuclear deterrence – Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai offered to begin direct talks with the
United States to relax tensions in the Far East particularly over the Taiwan issue.62 With
Dulles on a temporary vacation, the State Department took three days to issue an official
acceptance of the offer.63 As negotiations moved forward, the offshore islands crisis
quickly cooled. In subsequent weeks, Eisenhower denied Chiang requests for increased
military aid and maintained his resistance to Nationalist raids on Communist airfields.64
After eight long months, the ―most difficult issue‖ of Eisenhower‘s presidency had
finally ended without war.
62
Tillman Durdin, ―Chou Asks for U.S. Talks on Easing Formosa Crisis; Washington Sets Terms,‖ New
York Times April 24, 1955; Accinelli, 232.
63
FRUS: 1955-57, Vol. 2. 519.
64
Ibid., 553; 565-566.
-98-
Conclusion
The common interpretation that Eisenhower and Dulles announced the decision to
use tactical nuclear weapons to defend the offshore islands in an attempt to test the New
Look policy of massive retaliation is wrong. While the administration had attempted to
pursue a New Look policy of flexibility during the first stages of the crisis, by March
1955, the perception of any room for flexibility had vanished. Dulles‘s Oracle strategy,
coupled with the completion of the Formosa resolution in January, fell well within the
bounds of a flexible approach to crises designed to minimize cost while deterring
Communist expansion. Using the United Nations as a diplomatic tool, the United States
could engage the People‘s Republic of China in a forum conducive to extracting
concessions via the international spotlight. Simultaneously, convincing Congress to grant
the president blanket authority to take military action sent a clear signal that the United
States could and would rapidly retaliate against continued Communist aggression.
Concordant with the stated intention of the New Look to negotiate with Communists
when the position appeared favorable to the United States, Dulles and most of the
president‘s cabinet believed that the crisis did not have to culminate in war; it was a
horrible dilemma, certainly, but not an irresolvable one. By late February, however, it
appeared that time had run out. Dulles‘s Asia trip brought marked changes in his
statements and attitudes toward the crisis. Convinced that diplomacy had failed and that
the crisis would now inevitably culminate in war, Dulles abandoned the policy of
flexibility to prepare for the coming conflict.
The administration‘s nuclear policy during March stemmed from the belief that
the United States would have to fight a war. Analysis from officials like Admiral Stump,
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Admiral Twinning, and Admiral Radford of how best to conduct that coming war
overwhelmingly concluded that the United States would have to use atomic weapons;
conventional weapons stood a real risk of failing to sufficiently destroy hardened gun
emplacements and airfields. As the administration settled the issue of how to attack
mainland China, intelligence and military estimates came out warning of a potential
international backlash against the use of atomic weapons. Hoping to mitigate the
political damage from their planned attack, Dulles and Eisenhower gave a series of
speeches that demonized China and played down the potential effects of a nuclear strike.
In stark contrast to Dulles‘s famed ―massive retaliation‖ speech given to outline the
principles of the New Look, the speeches delivered in March emphasized the existence of
tactical nuclear weapons that would have a less-than-massive effect, destroying only
certain key military assets and leaving cities intact.
When Eisenhower met international and domestic resistance to the nuclear
strategy, he found himself forced to take the reins in managing the crisis by again trying
to find room for flexibility. Though Eisenhower retracted his belief in the military
necessity of atomic weapons, he recognized that continued nuclear rhetoric and support
for military actions in the Taiwan Straits would only worsen the divide that threatened
Congress in late April. Faced with an impossible choice between launching a divisive
but necessary nuclear strike on China and losing regional credibility by abandoning the
offshore islands, Eisenhower made a last ditch effort to resolve the crisis diplomatically
by persuading Chiang to voluntarily withdraw from the islands. Unsurprisingly, the bid
met with unwavering resistance from Taiwan and failed quickly. Fortunately for the
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president, however, the crisis resolved itself as suddenly as it had begun, thus relieving
him of the need to render a final decision on how to end the crisis.
This thesis sides with Eisenhower‘s critics with regard to his navigation of the
crisis. Though the president merits some credit for refusing to give in to Radford and
Congressional hawks during the first phase of crisis, in the end, his handling of the
situation showed a remarkable degree of overreaction and inflexibility in framing the
crisis. From the onset, Eisenhower unnecessarily viewed the situation as a ―horrible
dilemma.‖ When the crisis began, few on Eisenhower‘s staff expressed the belief that
Communist shelling operations marked the start of a massive campaign against Taiwan.
At that stage in the crisis, policy planners mainly believed that the Chinese intended only
to capture a series of militarily worthless islands which sat just miles from the mainland
coast. Given the geographic location and comparatively minimal value of these islands,
Eisenhower should have had little trouble advising Chiang to abandon them. Members of
his staff recommended taking precisely such action, including Secretary of Defense
Charles Wilson and Secretary of the Treasury George M. Humphrey. If Eisenhower
remained intent on reassuring Chiang, he could have accompanied that advice with
military reinforcements for Taiwan – a policy he ultimately attempted to pursue during
the tail end of the crisis. Instead, Eisenhower and Dulles dramatically and consistently
overstated the potential political damage that withdrawal from the offshore islands could
have caused.
As Robert McMahon has noted, the Eisenhower administration insisted on
viewing regional developments within the oversimplified lens of bipolarity.1
Consequently, Eisenhower imagined a world in which the blow to Chinese Nationalist
1
McMahon, 457.
-101-
morale that would come from abandoning the offshore islands would ripple throughout
the Far East and seriously weaken America‘s strategic position there. During the crisis,
the administration overlooked compelling evidence to suggest that such a political
catastrophe would not have occurred. Neither at the beginning of the crisis nor when the
Chinese Nationalists withdrew from Yikiangshan Island did the administration see the
inklings of a major political upheaval in the Far East. Moreover, a number of highranking officials with experience in Taiwan did not perceive the loss of the islands as
particularly crushing politically. Notable supporter of Nationalist possession of the
offshore islands, U.S. ambassador to the Republic of China Karl L. Rankin, made clear
that he did not foresee any substantial political consequence to the loss of the islands.2
The administration thus handcuffed itself to a dilemma it could have avoided with a more
careful analysis of the value of the islands.
The administration also overlooked compelling evidence against the notion of an
impending Chinese Communist assault on Taiwan, which led to a series of near
disastrous miscalculations. Intelligence estimates from September through April
consistently reported no evidence of a Communist military buildup. Even as Dulles and
Radford isolated the significance of the Fukien airfield, intelligence reports found no
indication of military activity there. Even Admiral Stump, who consistently stressed the
need for a hardline military stance toward China, declared that he saw little material
evidence of a buildup.3 Instead, the administration based their assessment of an
inevitable conflict on their previous diplomatic failures and the idea that Chinese
Communist operations had previously taken the United States by surprise during the
2
FRUS 1955-1957, vol. 2. 361.
Memorandum of conversation between Colonel Andrew Goodpaster and Admiral Stump, March 15,
1955, International Series: AWF, DDEL.
3
-102-
Korean War. The resulting misunderstanding encouraged the administration to issue a
nuclear warning in response to a threat that never really existed. Likewise, the false
notion that the Chinese Communists intended to launch an all-out assault on Taiwan
convinced Dulles to reject Chou En-Lai‘s February offer for direct bilateral negotiations.
After two of the most dangerous months in the crisis, the administration ended up
accepting a similar offer from the Chinese premier in a desperate bid to end the crisis
without coming to war. Even more troubling, the administration‘s accepted solution to
the crisis failed to actually resolve the heart of the matter, a failure that came back to
haunt the president when tensions flared again in 1958.
The blame for these failures falls with the New Look policy itself. Designed to
give the administration flexibility while accommodating a range of goals, the New Look
doctrine convinced the president to consistently see his dilemma as resolvable through
flexible means without the need to jeopardize U.S. influence in Asia. Throughout the
first stages of the crisis, Eisenhower maintained an optimism that a combination of
diplomacy and pressure could persuade the Chinese to back down without the need for
him to take a definitive stand on the islands themselves. This illusion of flexibility
convinced the president that he did not need to contemplate abandoning the islands. By
the time that illusion faded in early March, the president had already committed too much
and extracted too many concessions from the Nationalists to seriously contemplate a
retreat. Likewise, the idea that the Chinese Communists had ignored U.S. attempts to
resolve the crisis diplomatically during the first stages of the crisis convinced Eisenhower
and Dulles that the Chinese Communists would launch an all-out assault on the offshore
islands even when evidence said the opposite. In other words, Eisenhower and Dulles
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blamed the failure of flexibility on Chinese obduracy and therefore ignored compelling
evidence against the idea of an inevitable war. The idea of flexibility provided by the
New Look doctrine thus forced the president into a position of inflexibility regarding the
potential escalation of the crisis.
Eisenhower‘s navigation of the Quemoy-Matsu crisis had a manifold impact on
American foreign and security policy. Eisenhower‘s early policy toward Taiwan set the
tone of United States relations with the People‘s Republic until President Jimmy Carter
established formal diplomatic ties in 1979. Even after that transition in American foreign
policy, the Formosa Treaty remains a sticking point in Sino-American relations and a
centerpiece of American extended deterrence commitments well after the end of the Cold
War. In particular, the third Taiwan Straits crisis in 1995 over a series of PRC missile
tests brought to the fore lingering American commitments to defend Taiwan from any
Chinese assault and raised questions about the possibility of future escalation of a SinoAmerican conflict over Taiwan.4 Likewise, moves by Dulles and Eisenhower to
retroactively paint the crisis as a triumph of brinksmanship successfully colored popular
perception of the events and lent credence to realist schools of thought regarding
deterrence which influenced future foreign policy makers and academics. During the
1960 presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, debates which
laid some of the groundwork for theoretical discussions about deterrence and nuclear
4
Robert S. Ross, "The 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Confrontation: Coercion, Credibility, and Use of Force,"
International Security 25, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 87–123. See for example, John F. Copper, Playing with Fire:
The Looming War with China over Taiwan (New York: Praeger Security International General Interest,
2006); Nancy Bernkopf Tucker ed., Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis, (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2005).
-104-
policy, opinion divided on whether Eisenhower deterred the Chinese or recklessly risked
an unnecessary war, with Nixon preferring the former and Kennedy preferring the latter.5
In a post-Cold War era of American unipolarity and China‘s rising power, it is
essential that historians thoroughly explore and understand the meanings, causes and
significance of Eisenhower‘s Quemoy-Matsu policy for the implications it has on the
present and for the example it offers for the future. Understanding that period in U.S.China relations can provide a useful framework for approaching historical ties between
the globe‘s most powerful nations. As China and the United States waver between the
relations of allies and distrustful partners, the importance of understanding how these two
global powers came to their current situation cannot be overstated. Likewise, as
emergent powers like Iran and North Korea threaten to challenge the credibility of
American extended deterrence, it is essential that policy makers have access to a wealth
of examples and perspectives on successful and unsuccessful nuclear policies. The first
Quemoy and Matsu crisis offers a unique example that set the bar for American nuclear
policy and opened a range of questions about the usefulness and necessity of nuclear
threats.
5
Robert B. Norris, ―Quemoy and Matsu: A Historical Footnote Revisited,‖ American Diplomacy
(November 29, 2010), accessed online,
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2010/0912/comm/norris_quemoymatsu.html
-105-
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