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

323. Letter From the Secretary of State to Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson¹

[Washington,] July 29, 1955.

My Dear Ambassador Johnson: In your forthcoming talks at Geneva, Switzerland, with a representative of the Chinese Peoples Republic (CPR), you will be guided by the following considerations:

(1) The talks are a continuation of the talks held in the last year between representatives of both sides at Geneva.

(2) Through you and the appropriate representative of the CPR, the talks are now being resumed at the ambassadorial level.

(3) The agreed purpose of your talks is “to aid in settling the matter of repatriation of civilians who desire to return to their respective countries and to facilitate further discussion and settlement of certain other practical matters now at issue between both sides.”

(4) You should seek agreement that the talks will be conducted in an atmosphere of privacy and that no other than routine public statements will be made regarding them, except as may be approved by both sides or after prior notification by one side to the other. The approval or notification from our side is to be authorized by the Department of State. In the main, you will discourage publicity about, and exaggeration of, the meeting.

(5) You may in your discretion meet socially with the CPR representative.

(6) It is, of course, understood that the conversations upon which you are to engage do not involve diplomatic recognition.

(7) Since the scope of your talks is “practical matters now at issue between both sides”, i.e., the U.S. and the CPR, you will not discuss issues which involve the rights of the Republic of China. If you are in doubt as to the practical application of this instruction, you will seek guidance from the Department of State.

(8) The U.S. is willing to talk about “other practical matters” than the repatriation of civilians because we do not want to have unnecessary differences with anyone if these differences can be honorably resolved.

(9) Direct talks have been preferred to carrying on discussions through intermediaries. The reason is that there is more apt to be misunderstanding when matters are dealt with through intermediaries; therefore, we believe direct dealings should, in the first instance at least, be tried.

(10) The first agreed purpose of the meeting is already the subject of bilateral talks, i.e., “settling the matter of repatriation of civilians who desire to return to their respective countries”. You will seek immediate authorization to U.S. civilians to return to the U.S. You may point out that so long as American civilians are held under restraint on the mainland of China, there is bound to be ill feeling in the U.S. We are not, however, willing to promise political concessions to obtain their release. Only voluntary action by the CPR would really serve to remove the widespread resentment now felt in the U.S. because of the mistreatment by the CPR of U.S. citizens.

(11) You are authorized formally to assure the CPR representative that the U.S. does not impose restraints upon Chinese civilians who desire to return to the Mainland. The U.S. is prepared to authorize some mutually agreeable government through its embassy in the U.S. to assist Chinese students who desire to return to the China mainland and to be a medium for the transmission of funds required for this purpose.

(12) One of the “other practical matters now at issue between both sides” is the prisoners of war who were under the UN Command in Korea, and as to whom an initiative has been taken by the United Nations. The U.S. wishes to reinforce that initiative and you should raise this matter concurrently with the matter of the U.S. civilians. The considerations above (paragraph 10) alluded to in reference to U.S. civilians apply with equal or greater force with respect to the U.S. military, who are deemed covered by the Korean Armistice agreement.

(13) You may, if and as you deem appropriate, mention that if U.S. nationals, civilian and POW’s, now held within China, are released that might facilitate the U.S. voluntarily adopting a less restrictive policy as to U.S. citizens going to the China mainland.

(14) As another of the “practical matters” which you should take up at a later stage of the discussions is the matter of assuring instructions which will prevent a repetition of such incidents as the shooting down of the Cathay Pacific airliner with death and injury to U.S. citizens.²

(15) You will also, at whatever times you deem appropriate, emphasize the deep concern of the U.S. in getting assurance that the CPR is prepared to renounce force to achieve its ambitions.

If the CPR representative contends that the use of force in the Formosa area is justifiable because this involves a domestic matter, i.e., the unification of China, you may point out that the fact of a divided China is not basically different from the fact of a divided Korea, Germany, and Vietnam. It could be argued in each of these cases that unification is purely an internal matter. But in reality resort to force would endanger international peace and security. The same applies to China. The U.S. believes that the principle of non-recourse to force is valid not merely for the U.S. and its allies, but for all.

(16) If the CPR questions the acceptance of the foregoing principle by the U.S. and its allies, you may in response point to the purely defensive character of our arrangements with the Republic of China, particularly exemplified in our 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty.

(17) If the CPR has practical matters at issue with the U.S. which they would like to bring up, you are authorized to take note of what the CPR representative has to say in this respect and report to me and await appropriate instructions.

(18) You will seek to arrange your talks with the CPR representative so that you will be able to return from time to time to your regular post at Prague, for I deem it important that the people of Czechoslovakia should not feel that the U.S. is disinterested in their fate, the fact being quite the contrary as the President has personally made clear to you. If you should feel that you cannot adequately discharge your responsibilities as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia and at the same time discharge your present special mission, you will promptly inform me.

Sincerely yours,

John Foster Dulles

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/7–2955. Confidential. The source text indicates that it was drafted by Dulles and handed to Johnson by Robert G. Barnes, Deputy Director of the Executive Secretariat, on July 30. A memorandum of conversation by Johnson, dated July 29, of a meeting that day with the President and the Secretary states that the President approved the draft instructions but records no further discussion relating to China. It is scheduled for publication in the Eastern Europe regional compilation in a forthcoming volume. Ambassador Johnson stated in an interview in 1966 that he read the instructions in draft at the Secretary’s request and added some suggestions, which Dulles approved, and that at his meeting with the President, the latter gave the instructions only “a cursory glance”. Johnson also stated that Secretary Dulles gave him oral instructions to keep the talks going as long as possible and that he “made a particular point of getting the Secretary’s and the President’s approval for taking the forthcoming personal attitude towards the Chinese which I did.” (Transcript of interview with Johnson, May 28, 1966, pp. 21–33; Princeton University Library, John Foster Dulles Oral History Project)
2. Reference is to a British commercial airliner shot down on July 23, 1954, by two Chinese Communist fighter planes.