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

272. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Secretary of State and Krishna Menon, New York, June 15, 1955, 6:15 p.m.¹

New York, June 15, 1955, 6:15 p.m.

I saw Mr. Menon alone. He said he would assure me that he would not quote or attribute to me anything I said to him privately. He made four points:

1. It would greatly help if the families could go.

2. It would greatly help if some press or radio people could go.²

3. Would it be possible to discuss hypothetically the situation which would exist if the prisoners were released?

4. Could he be officially informed that the Chinese students in this country who wanted to go would be free to do so?

I said that I did not think that what happened to the prisoners was as important as the way in which it happened. If the Chinese Communists wanted to begin to gain respect as decent people, they would let the prisoners go. If they would only let them go on condition that we did things that we would not otherwise do, then they were using human lives for blackmail purposes. Even if we acceded and got the prisoners out, the result would not be to improve relations. We would have demeaned ourselves, and the Chinese Communists would have given another illustration of their unwillingness to act in a civilized way. The release of the prisoners under these circumstances would make matters worse, rather than better.

As regards the press, I said we could not give passports by whim as he suggested to one or two people—either we gave passports to China or we did not. If we gave passports, then anyone was entitled to go unless there was some legal reason to prevent him. Mr. Menon said he had not realized this, and thought that issuing passports was purely discretionary.

I made no comment on the “hypothetical” case.

I said I did not want yet to tell him officially that all the Chinese students could go, as I wanted to think the situation over a little bit more.

He asked if he could see me again in San Francisco. I said that if he were out there, we could probably set up some time when we could talk further.³

I suggested that some arrangement might be made whereby some third government could look after the interests of Americans in China generally and also look after those Chinese in this country who wanted to go back to Communist China. I said the latter were not now represented because since we did not recognize Communist China, there was no third government to look out for their interests here as was normally the case when diplomatic relations were broken.

JFD

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Memoranda of Conversation. Secret; Personal and Private.
2. A marginal note in an unidentified handwriting reads “(e.g. [Edward R.] Murrow or [James] Reston.)”
3. No record of any conversation in San Francisco between Dulles and Menon has been found in Department of State files or Eisenhower Library, but see Document 283. Memoranda of conversations between Menon and Allen on June 21, 22, and 25 in San Francisco are in Department of State, Central Files, 790.00/6–2155.