<--PREV Doc #1378  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1380 Document #1379; April 5, 1955 To John Foster Dulles Series: EM, AWF, Dulles-Herter Series ; Category: Top secret The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVI - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VII: "Nothing could be worse than global war"; January 1955 to May 1955 Chapter 15: Searching "for an honorable peace"   Memorandum for the Secretary of State: I have read your memorandum and I like it very much. Particularly in giving the background of the whole situation I think it approaches perfection.1 Because my own memorandum was so nearly completed when I received yours, I have had it typed up and furnish a copy herewith. Perhaps some skillful staff group might take elements of my memorandum to attach to yours, in the hope that the final paper could be one to form the basis of discussion with other interested officials and associates, so that we can get something started promptly.2 1 Secretary Dulles's memorandum, on which Eisenhower made some alterations and comments, was the preliminary draft of a statement of U.S. policy regarding the situation in the Formosa Strait. After stating U.S. resolve to maintain a Free China Government on Taiwan as "a basic and fundamental position," Dulles presented possible conditions on the mainland that could present opportunities for the Chinese Nationalists to return. He reviewed previous U.S. policy measures regarding the Republic of China, including economic and military aid, the Mutual Defense Treaty signed in December 1954, and the position against seating the Chinese Communist government in the United Nations. Retention of the offshore islands was not an essential part of U.S. policy, Dulles stated, and a flexible position must be retained regarding their defense. He suggested that Nationalist China consider the islands as "outposts" and should "not commit its prestige to the defense of these perhaps indefensible positions so deeply that, if they should be lost, all the future possibilities now represented by the Republic of China would also be lost" (April 4, 1955, AWF/D-H). When Eisenhower and Dulles had discussed the memorandum on the previous day, the President said he hated to see the United States "drift into what might be a very bad situation." Both men agreed that "a major problem was to find someone who had Chiang's confidence and who could persuade him that the coastal positions were . . . `outposts, not citadels'" (Memorandum of Conversation, Apr. 4, 1955, Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series; see also Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 480-81; and Ferrell, ed., Diary of James C. Hagerty, p. 224-25). 2 For Eisenhower's memorandum and for developments see the following document. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Top secret To John Foster Dulles, 5 April 1955. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1379. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1379.cfm <--PREV Doc #1378  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1380

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