<--PREV Doc #762  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #764 Document #763; July 2, 1958 To Paul Dudley White Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 151-A The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part V: Forcing the President's Hand; June 1958 to October 1958 Chapter 12: America Invades the Mideast   Dear Dr. White: Immediately after I received your letter of June seventeenth, I got in touch with the State Department to determine their reaction to your request for a special assignment to go to Communist China.1 I am sorry that I must give you a reply that will, I know, be disappointing to you. In general, I consider that it must continue to be a United States policy not to authorize travel of American citizens to the China mainland even in cases like your own, where, if normal conditions obtained, worthwhile contact would result. The Department has prepared for me a memorandum of further considerations relating to travel of Americans to Communist China which I believe will be of interest to you. A copy of that memorandum is enclosed.2 With warm regard,3 Sincerely 1 White had written following his return from a trip to New Zealand and Australia where he had helped establish a National Cardiac Research Foundation. While there he had been intrigued by reports of physicians who had recently visited mainland China. He recalled that in September 1956, he had received official invitations to lecture at medical schools in Mukden, Shanghai, and Peking. Although he had put off accepting the offers, he believed that the "invitations could be revived at any time if it were considered worthwhile." White asked for a "special assignment to go medically to China with some of the Australian, British, or Mexican physicians. Perhaps a very few of us might be able to go if it were in any way possible. I feel that we could do a useful job in a medical contact" (June 17, 1958). The invitations to White may have represented efforts by the Chinese government to open an informal channel of communication with the American government in the light of increasing tensions with the Soviet Union (see Chang, Friends and Enemies, pp. 161 - 62). 2 Secretary of State Dulles had prepared a memorandum regarding the proposed visit to the People's Republic (July 1, 1958). He noted that there had been only four exceptions to the general U.S. policy against authorizing travel to the Chinese mainland. "In each of these instances there were clear considerations of overriding importance to the national interest which do not appear to exist in Dr. White's particular case." Dulles had also enclosed a draft reply to White for the President's use. 3 White would respond on July 12, thanking the President for the "trouble" he took on White's behalf. "I appreciate the situation and will be patient," he said. All correspondence is in the same file as the document. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Paul Dudley White, 2 July 1958. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 763. 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/second-term/documents/763.cfm <--PREV Doc #762  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #764

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