Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, China, Volume II

221. Telegram From the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Aldrich) to the Department of State¹

London, April 25, 1955—11 a.m.

4724. For Key and Lodge from Wadsworth.² Request limited distribution. SYG Hammarskjold came to see me yesterday at his request to tell me the outcome of his conversation in Stockholm with the ChiCom Ambassador to Sweden.³ He will give more details upon his return,⁴ but wanted US Govt to have immediate news of four points he thought were significant and hoped this information would be treated most confidentially.

(1) At ChiCom Amb’s request meeting was private, almost clandestine, with only persons present SYG, ChiCom Amb and interpreter. Since SYG had originally asked for appointment far in advance, this meant to him that he would be given Chou’s personal views.

(2) ChiCom Amb asked SYG how he, SYG, would handle release of airmen if he were in Chou’s position. SYG considered this highly significant since ChiComs had now moved from question of whether to release to the question of how to release. I pointed out that SYG had already given the answer in his letter of some two months ago,⁵ but he insisted that this was usual procedure and that suggestion contained in letter would be confirmed by face-to-face statement rather than other way around.

(3) SYG, in his answer, attempted to put himself in Chou’s place, saying that he would have to do so since he did not accept major premise of airmen’s guilt. However, on basis of Peiping attitude airmen should be released by commuting sentences without weakening position Chinese courts which had found them guilty. This would also apply to four airmen not yet considered guilty of anything but intrusion over ChiCom territory. SYG wants US to know he made clear that he did not believe in espionage charges and that his answer would have been drastically different had he not attempted put himself in Chou’s place.

(4) At end of conference, after several other minor points discussed,⁶ SYG asked ChiCom Amb to send word to Chou asking him whether he would like SYG to take any specific action which might facilitate airmen’s release. This, thinks SYG, puts ball back on ChiCom side of net.

ChiCom Amb told SYG that Chou was ready to release airmen after SYG Peiping visit and “the Chinese people would have supported him in this”, but that other cases intrusion plus “incident of sabotaged airplane”⁷ had intervened. SYG not impressed but fore-bore to argue. I believe UK FonOff will probably brief SYG on evidence ChiCom foreknowledge airplane crash.

Aldrich

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.95A241/4–2555. Secret. Received at 4:42 p.m. Repeated for information to New York.
2. James J. Wadsworth, Deputy Representative to the United Nations, was representing the United States at a meeting in London of the Subcommittee of Five of the U.N. Disarmament Commission.
3. Hammarskjöld’s meeting with Ambassador Keng Piao on April 23 was held at the Secretary-General’s request.
4. An aide-mémoire by Hammarskjöld, dated May 2, was sent with a covering letter of the same date to Lodge; both were sent to Dulles with a covering memorandum of May 4 from Key. (Department of State, Central Files, 611.95A241/5–455)
5. See Document 120.
6. According to the aide-mémoire cited in footnote 4 above, Ambassador Keng asked about the Chinese students in the United States, and Hammarskjöld replied that that problem seemed to be resolved, since only two requests for exit permits were still pending, and he had reason to believe that they would be resolved in due time. Telegram 612 to New York, April 20, suggested that Lodge inform Hammarskjöld, in case Keng Piao raised the subject, that only two Chinese students were still under restraining orders, that the review of those two cases was continuing, and that the rest of the students previously denied permission to leave were all free to depart. (Department of State, Central Files, 611.95A241/4–1455)
7. Reference is to the Kashmir Princess, an Air India plane chartered by the PRC Government which crashed on April 11 on a flight from Hong Kong to Jakarta, killing all 11 passengers, several of whom were staff members of the Chinese and North Vietnamese Delegations to the Bandung Conference. For text of a statement issued on April 12 in Peking, charging that the crash was due to a plot by “secret agent organizations of the United States and Chiang Kai-shek”, see People’s China, May 1, 1955, p. 40; see also Trevelyan, Living with the Communists, pp. 157–161.