For Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mao Zedong, the 1958 Strait confrontation reflected different definitions of security, trouble with domestic constituencies, and clashing cultural assumptions, even as both sought to avoid a military collision. The crisis evolved slowly from the inconclusive outcome of the earlier Taiwan Strait confrontation in 1954. When Beijing began hammering the offshore islands with artillery fire on August 23rd, that action was not entirely unanticipated nor were the Americans unprepared. The United States swiftly entered the fray; an alarmed international community preferred to watch from a distance. Washington, meanwhile, pressed Chiang Kai-shek to reduce his garrison and to renounce the use of force while Moscow reluctantly supported Chinese operations. Within weeks Beijing called for resumption of ambassadorial talks and on October 6thdeclared a cease-fire. The end of the altercation, however, did not resolve the underlying civil war dilemma of a divided China, and in 1962 conflict would flare again.
For Eisenhower, shelling in the Strait, as in 1954, was a clarion call to defend the free world and to wage peace. He believed he must prevent the expansion of Communism but also avert military exchanges with China and the Soviet Union. Although saving the offshore islands had become even more controversial in 1958 than in 1954, too many elements of U.S. policy flowed through the Strait—domestic politics, security, international credibility, and the freedom to apply U.S. power—just to let them go. Thus he quickly, if cautiously, responded by authorizing naval convoys for Nationalist supply ships to the edge of China’s territorial waters.1 Eager to avoid an explosion, the president told his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs that even if the Chinese Communists committed “an overt act against the off-shore islands” the United States should be careful “not [to] take instantaneous action which would spread the hostilities.”2
For Mao, the decision to instigate the conflict most importantly served the goal of domestic reform. Capitalizing on the nationalistic fervor he expected to generate, Mao believed he could rally the government, party, and people behind breathtaking economic and social reorganization—the Great Leap Forward he had launched in January 1958.3 Since “the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] had, in effect, repudiated much of its own past… [and] could no longer insist on having a monopoly on theoretical guidance,” Mao felt free to reject the Soviet economic model.4 As he plunged ahead with formation of people’s communes throughout the country beginning in August 1958, he simultaneously sought to eradicate lingering positive images of the United States—as World War II allies and missionary educators—which he believed slowed revolutionary change at home.5
Mao also had foreign policy goals. He did not intend to go to war, endanger U.S. forces, or take control of the islands.6 He wanted to test American resolve, waste U.S. resources, and weaken U.S.-Taiwan ties by triggering conflicting expectations and demonstrating the total, and embarrassing, dependence of Taiwan.7 Furthermore, Mao wanted to thwart any plans permanently to split China. The U.S. Seventh Fleet’s continuing presence in the Taiwan Strait encouraged international acceptance of two Chinas.8 He had been angered by ambassadorial talks that made no advances, but also by Washington’s willingness to disrupt them. He had been exasperated by Moscow’s focus on Soviet-American détente. And as the American intervention in Lebanon unfolded in July, he may have worried about a new American aggressiveness that could threaten China, or he might have relished an opportunity to accomplish his goals while Washington remainedpreoccupied.9 In May he told the Eighth Party Congress, “Dulles looks down upon us [because] we have not yet completely shown and proven our strength.”10
After the end of the first crisis in the Taiwan Strait in 1955, a range of short- and long-term irritants had accumulated. The president and the secretary of state recognized that mounting pressures on China could trigger an explosion. Chiang Kai-shek had not only retained most of the contested islands but had moved vigorously to strengthen their defenses by shifting large contingents of Taiwan’s best forces to Jinmen and Mazu. Although Eisenhower and Dulles had repeatedly urged him to reduce his commitment, by 1958 Chiang had placed some 100, 000 soldiers, composing one-third of his army, in garrisons on the islands. To Mao’s distress, the United States continued support of Chiang’s government nonetheless, signing a wide range of agreements for economic, cultural, and military cooperation. Chinese Communist leaders saw these as an Americanization of Taiwan as well as a crystallization of its separation from the mainland.
Courtesy of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Beijing objected particularly to the emplacement of nuclear-warhead capable Matador missiles on Taiwan in 1957. These weapons significantly upgraded Taiwan’s arsenal, providing a previously absent all-weather, night-flight capability and allowing Taipei to target eight mainland airfields as well as major population and industrial centers like Shanghai and Wuhan.11 Although deployment in Taiwan was designed to leverage Japan into upgrading its defenses to include Matadors, the Chinese Communists and Nationalists saw the gesture as confirming Washington’s commitment to Taiwan.12 It also suggested that Washington entertained the possibility of limited nuclear wars.13
Simultaneously Taiwan became a hub for American intelligence operations. It acted as a platform for infiltrating agents and launching commando operations against the mainland. It played a central part in opposing Chinese rule in Tibet, and during the early 1958 coup attempt against the left-leaning Sukarno, the CIA flew missions to Indonesia from airfields in Taiwan.
Mao’s frustration with the trajectory of Sino-American relations coexisted with a growing conviction that he could undermine the alignment between Taiwan and the United States. American officials were clearly irritated by their inability to persuade Chiang to reduce troops on the offshore islands. They wanted Chiang to scale back Taiwan’s oversized military budget lest it overwhelm the island’s economy even as it drained U.S. coffers.
Discord also mounted between the general population of Taiwan and the growing American community of military, political, and economic advisory personnel. Despite repeated warnings from the U.S. ambassador that too many Americans lived and worked in Taiwan (some 11, 000 by 1957), that their style of living was too different, and that cultural misunderstandings had provoked widespread resentment, Washington did nothing to ameliorate friction.14 On “Black Friday,” May 24, 1957, a mob of 25, 000 ransacked the U.S. embassy and the headquarters of the United States Information Service in Taipei as well as threatening the offices of the Military Advisory Group over issues of extraterritoriality and racism.
In addition to a spontaneous outpouring of frustration, the riot also reflected unhappiness with Taiwan’s almost total dependence upon United States protection and largesse. The ROC had few legitimate ways to voice its disagreement with American policies. To Beijing the rioting demonstrated Chiang’s understandable anti-American resentment.15 Mao believed that an attempt to liberate the offshore islands would, at the very least, aggravate friction between Washington and Taipei.16
The more immediate evidence of a brewing crisis included China’s revival of its liberate Taiwan campaign, coupled with brief air battles, heightened reconnaissance, an improved radar net, reinforcement of artillery and anti-aircraft emplacements as well as construction of four new coastal airbases.17 By the end of July, Chinese Nationalist officials had begun forecasting trouble, and between June 29th and August 8th they lost ten aircraft to Chinese fire.18 The CIA predicted interdiction of ships carrying provisions to the islands, and various U.S. agencies dusted off contingency plans.19
Among the critical questions that hot, humid summer were what kind of warnings to send to Beijing. On August 15, Under Secretary of State Christian Herter told Dulles that the JCS, CIA, and State Department wanted to tell Beijing—through confidential Soviet channels—that any attempt to seize the islands or starve them would run into “U.S. military countermeasures.”20 Dulles insisted on public clarification of American policy. He came as close to an open statement of intent as possible when, in a public letter to Representative Thomas Morgan (D-PA), acting chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he asserted that Chinese ambitions to seize territory integrally related to the defense of Taiwan must be thwarted. If war developed, such a war could not be limited.21
Eisenhower, meanwhile, remained wedded to strategic ambiguity.22 He felt himself bound by the 1955 Formosa Resolution to keep his options open and not commit to defend Jinmen and Mazu.23 As the shelling began, like the JCS and the commander in chief, Pacific command (CINCPAC), Eisenhower thought that a nebulous policy would keep Beijing off balance and prevent Taipei from trying to capitalize on American support. He trusted his ally little more than his enemy, believing “Orientals can be very devious.”24
Chiang Kai-shek, similarly disparaging and distrustful of Westerners, found U.S. assurances inadequate and demanded a categorical statement of military support as well as shipments of advanced weapons.25 He also prompted Ambassador Everett F. Drumright, CIA station chief Ray Cline, Vice Admiral Roland Smoot (chief of the Taiwan Defense Command), and Admiral Harry D. Felt (CINCPAC) to urge explicit backing and arms deliveries.
Intelligence sources, however, quickly reassured Eisenhower that the Chinese Communists shelling did not mean an imminent assault on Taiwan or even an effort to take the offshore islands. Reporting to the NSC just before the shooting started, CIA Director Allen Dulles had complained that the Chinese Nationalists had “overplayed and over-dramatized the situation… [and] by their well-advertised attacks on Chinese Communist junks, had supplied the Chinese Communists with a precedent for air attacks on shipping.”26 Nevertheless, although the bombardment was fearsome, the unsuitable deployment of forces and the start of typhoon season militated against an actual invasion.27 A wider war seemed even less likely.28
On August 25, Eisenhower directed the JCS to support Nationalist forces in the event of a major PRC assault, even including bombing of mainland air bases on the southern coast with conventional and perhaps nuclear weapons.29 But Eisenhower kept these orders secret as the crisis unfolded. Gerard Smith, assistant secretary of state for policy planning, argued that Washington should not take on an “unconditional” commitment to act. Referring to the same Middle East intervention that inspired Mao, Smith argued that having shown determination in Lebanon, the United States could be sensible in Asia without being perceived as weak.30 Even Drum-right, although often a special pleader for Chiang, assured Dulles that, as of September 1, he did not “regard the military situation as desperate.”31
The secretary of state, although disturbed by Chinese Communist belligerence, did not believe that Beijing intended to take Taiwan or try to wrest Jinmen and Mazu from Chiang. He saw China as absorbed in an internal development program, which he thought held a higher priority for Beijing. Intelligence estimates supported the idea that “Beijing’s leaders were chary of risking a direct military confrontation with the United States, either strategic or conventional.” What was going on in the Strait was a probing operation probably concocted between Mao and Nikita Khrushchev during the latter’s summer visit to China.32
But Dulles masked his reasonable private calculations with alarmist rhetoric, seeking to protect the administration from the Republican right wing, and the nation from China, if his estimate regarding its intentions proved wrong. Thus when he traveled to Ike’s vacation headquarters at the Newport, Rhode Island, naval base on September 4, he carried a document designed to alert Americans to dangers ahead. The paper, concurred in by the secretary of defense and the JCS chairman, warned that the fall of Jinmen would bring down Taiwan and probably the entire anti-Communist defensive line in Asia, including Japan, Korea, and much of Southeast Asia. The consequences would be “more far-reaching and catastrophic” than those accompanying the loss of China, it said. Therefore, Dulles concluded, Washington must accept the risk of nuclear and general war.33
Eisenhower’s estimate remained sober despite the escalating rhetoric and his increasingly belligerent behavior. Having already determined that the offshore islands were of no military value, he firmly rejected the idea that Chiang might use them as stepping stones to recapture the mainland.34 Their seizure by Mao’s Communist forces would be significant as a blow to morale on Taiwan but would not undermine the ROC militarily. Morale, of course, could be of great moment, particularly with such a large contingent of Chiang’s best men on the islands who, Eisenhower complained, Chiang had turned into “hostages.”35 Indeed, Dulles emphasized to George Yeh, the ROC’s ambassador-designate, that the president “as a military man… felt that it was extremely foolish, utterly mad, military strategy to put the cream of the GRC’s [Government of the Republic of China] forces in positions of this kind.”36
More important to Eisenhower was to guard against Soviet aggrandizement and the possibility that “Russia and China—were determined to throw the West out of the Far East.”37 Notes of a meeting with the British asserted: “Should the Reds eventually control Formosa, that, in the President’s opinion, would be a real Munich.” During September, Eisenhower authorized a massive armada to be assembled in East Asian waters: six aircraft carriers, forty destroyers, three heavy cruisers, and more than twenty other ships, including submarines—the largest air-sea force in U.S. history to that time. The administration also sent eight-inch howitzers to Taiwan, which had the capacity of hitting the mainland with atomic shells, and supplied the Nationalists with F-100 and F-86 aircraft, the latter armed with air-to-air Sidewinder missiles.38 The president sought to send China a message with a “show of force” and made sure of “calculated leaks regarding our actions.”39 As a result, however, he led his own military to overestimate what the president was prepared to do to deal with the situation.
The JCS assumed that Eisenhower would utilize nuclear weapons to deal with China. The cabinet—excluding Dulles, who was vacationing—concurred without objections. Arguing vociferously that the United States must defend Jinmen, the Joint Chiefs made it clear that in the event of an attack or a prolonged blockade, the United States would have to strike directly at mainland bases. Thus the operational plan presented by Pacific Air Force Commander Laurence S. Kuter relied on nuclear weapons, and in August the Strategic Air Command put five B-47s capable of dropping Hiroshima-size 10- to 15-kiloton bombs on alert in Guam. The bombs were intended for mainland airfields and, possibly, urban and industrial infrastructure in the Xiamen area directly across the Strait from Taiwan.40 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Nathan Twining spoke of nuclear strikes as far away as Shanghai.
Although the cabinet did not object, Gerard Smith expressed his deep reservations to Under Secretary Herter. Dropping bombs with as much power as had been used on Hiroshima would cause millions of noncombatant casualties.41 Moreover, nuclear war would result because China and the Soviet Union would strike Taiwan and the Seventh Fleet. Smith objected that such a strategy was not politically sustainable. U.S. leaders must not risk a general nuclear war for the offshore islands.
The president fortuitously shared Smith’s reservations and ruled out the use of nuclear weapons even if the Chinese invaded Jinmen and Mazu. He made clear that his would be the deciding voice on a case-by-case basis regarding nuclear bombs. Eisenhower recognized the importance of KMT confidence but strongly objected to preserving it by employing nuclear weapons against mainland bases, which most likely would force the Soviet Union to intervene and trigger catastrophic conflict. His view had not changed since his alarmed rejection of dropping atomic bombs to save the French at Dienbienphu: “You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against Asians for the second time.”42 CIA Director Allen Dulles concurred, fearing a Communist nuclear response to any attack against mainland China.43 Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Far East J. Graham Parsons emphasized negative world reaction to brandishing atomic bombs and even Assistant Secretary Walter Robertson urged that conventional resources be thoroughly exploited first.44
Eisenhower’s refusal to rely on nuclear raids against the mainland left military planners scrambling. The Pentagon had not prepared adequately for conventional attacks and found that amassing equipment strained bases throughout the Asian region. Nuclear devices, it seemed, had not become conventional weapons.45
In fact, the idea that Washington might use nuclear weapons to deal with the fate of tiny and insignificant islands off the Chinese coast spurred reconsideration of defense policies. Despite his often belligerent and reckless rhetoric, Dulles actually was torn about employing nuclear bombs. He famously remarked to Joint Chiefs Chairman Twining that “there was no use of having a lot of stuff and never be[ing] able to use it.”46 And to the president, Dulles pointed out that hesitance in using atomic weapons out of fear of world opinion would require discarding the entire defense system envisioned under the New Look.47
But Dulles increasingly questioned the possible dropping of nuclear bombs.48 He had learned that huge civilian casualties would accompany a massive strike on the Soviet Union.49 He insisted to the NSC that “the United States must be in a position to fight defensive wars which do not involve the total defeat of the enemy.”50 He worried about the inevitability of escalation even with tactical weapons and came to argue that no war except defense of the homeland would justify nuclear weapons.51 “No man should arrogate to himself the power to decide that the future of mankind would benefit by an action entailing the killing of tens of millions of people.”52 In April 1958, having liberally made nuclear threats, Dulles nevertheless told the Defense Department to rethink a strategic doctrine that included massive retaliation. He had devised the concept, he claimed, as an answer to the Republican right’s advocacy of Fortress America, but all of Western civilization could be destroyed.53 By replacing conventional with nuclear capabilities, the Eisenhower administration had rendered its military arm dangerously inflexible—a realization generally, but wrongly, attributed to John F. Kennedy and his advisers.54
Talk of nuclear attack produced two other strong reactions. The Soviet Union, which had been notably silent, invoked the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty, warning that China remained under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella.55 Khrushchev wrote two stern letters to Eisenhower in which the Soviet leader threatened to make U.S. naval ships into “targets” and suggested that nuclear bombs dropped on China would mean retaliation on American soil.56 Khrushchev’s nuclear fulminations reinforced the image of an integrated bloc, although U.S. intelligence had also established that no Soviet military buildup was under way.57 The fact that the letters to Eisenhower arrived after the most dangerous moments of the Strait crisis had passed encouraged questions about Soviet support for Chinese actions, especially since the tardiness clearly rankled Beijing.
At the same time, American threats led Mao to speak again as he had in1946 of atomic weapons as paper tigers, horrifying Khrushchev every bit as much as it did Eisenhower and Dulles. During his 1954 visit to Beijing, the Soviet leader had tried to instruct Mao in the dangers of nuclear warfare, asserting that China’s massive army would be nothing more than “bomb fodder,” but Khrushchev recognized that Mao thought him a coward.58 Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko reported being “flabbergasted” by Mao’s calm suggestion in 1958 that a nuclear war could be waged on Chinese soil.59
Mao’s views were not, in fact, static. Soviet mastery of space led him to see the United States as a much reduced threat. Indeed, his most intense fury was aimed at Moscow. Khrushchev again raised the issue of military cooperation on September 13, expecting that in the midst of the confrontation in the Strait China’s leaders could be expected to appreciate it more.60 Instead, Beijing repeated its rejection of the Soviet initiative, suspicious that the offer entailed restrictions on China’s foreign policy and on its autonomy.61 Mao also resented what he interpreted as Russian contempt for the Chinese people, whom the Soviets saw as “among the inferior who are dumb and careless.” Mao berated the Soviet Ambassador for seeking “joint ownership and operation [of] our army, navy, air force, industry, agriculture, education.… With a few atomic bombs, you think you are in a position to control us… you have extended Russian nationalism to China’s coast.”62
Meanwhile, Mao and Zhou Enlai had decided even before the shelling that Washington would not send its military to defend Jinmen.63 War between the United States and the People’s Republic no longer seemed imminent. To be sure, Mao tightly controlled his military commanders to avoid shelling U.S. ships, forestalling any excuse for Washington to attack China.
Mao sought peace, not war, and turned to ambassadorial talks rather than to force of arms to deal with the United States. On September 6, in a conciliatory voice Zhou accepted the U.S. proposal to resume meetings, calling for discussion of the Taiwan problem directly with the United States.64 Mao described the situation that existed in Asia as a noose that America had tied around its own neck; he offered to rescue Washington lest it unwittingly be strangled.65
Eisenhower responded with relief. He reworked a draft American reply into a clear acceptance of China’s initiative.66 Although expectations for meetings with the Communist Chinese did not run high in Washington, Eisenhower thought it obvious that talking was a lot better than shooting. He dismissed critics, such as the commander in chief of the Pacific fleet, who declared that meeting with the Chinese would be an abandonment of American principles and would alarm Southeast Asian governments.67 Instead the president decided to tell China that when the shooting stopped, Chiang would be induced to remove troops from the islands and end harassment of the coast and shipping.68 The president had made clear to Dulles his “annoyance” with Chiang’s efforts to mire the United States in crises with China.69
From the Soviet perspective, Mao’s change of heart may have been as surprising as the original outbreak of shelling. Although Khrushchev and Defense Minister Rodin Malinovsky had been in Beijing from July 31 to August 3, 1958, and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950 required consultation, Mao did not apprise them of the confrontation to come.70 Mao’s desire to test the United States had a Soviet corollary. The crisis would force Khrushchev to rethink his America policy.71 As Mao famously remarked, “The islands are two batons that keep Khrushchev and Eisenhower dancing, scurrying this way and that. Don’t you see how wonderful they are?”72
Eisenhower, Dulles, and many of their advisors assumed that Khrushchev had known and approved of China’s action.73 Even conceding that Beijing and Moscow might see the Taiwan question differently, Eisenhower’s staff secretary Colonel Andrew Goodpaster asserted that “it is unlikely that such divergences would lead Peiping to a course of action directly contravening Moscow’s views.”74 Americans imagined that Khrushchev wanted tension in Asia to distract the United States from his activities in the Middle East and Berlin.75 Although in time intelligence analysts came to believe that Moscow had not initiated the maneuver, they continued to assume that Khrushchev knew. In fact, Mao did not expect to need Moscow’s assistance, nor did he want the Soviets to try to block his Taiwan strategy or use it to control Beijing.76 The CIA failed to see how much Mao resented Soviet interference or how irresponsible Mao appeared in Khrushchev’s eyes.
Distrust of Washington’s Taipei ally mirrored Sino-Soviet misunderstanding. Several members of the administration felt that Chiang had consciously left himself vulnerable and might have provoked the shelling.77 Even the JCS, which almost always supported the Nationalists, speculated angrily that Taiwan authorities were being “intentionally inept in order to draw [the] United States inextricably [into] conflict with CHICOMS [Chinese Communists].”78 The Taiwan Defense Command’s Smoot and Ambassador Drumright, otherwise staunch exponents of Chiang’s cause, railed against the reluctance of the Ministry of National Defense to try to break the artillery-imposed blockade.79
In addition to complaints about Taipei’s inadequate performance, Americans also were dismayed about Chiang’s intentions. Eisenhower, outraged and mistrustful, saw Chiang’s stubborn refusal to stop increasing troop concentrations on the offshore islands as intended to spark a Sino-American war.80 Taipei risked dangerous over flights, conducted commando raids, and underestimated food and ammunition available on Jinmen to keep U.S. escorts sailing.81 Ignoring Nationalist protests, the United States insisted that before taking retaliatory action, Taipei must consult with the United States “to the maximum extent feasible.”82 Admiral Felt actually feared that Chiang would mount a mainland operation preceded by a hate America campaign.83
Secretary of State Dulles also condemned Chiang for placing the United States in an untenable position. To Walter Robertson and Under Secretary Herter he complained in August that
I do not feel that we have a case which is altogether defensible. It is one thing to contend that the Chicoms should keep their hands off the present territorial and political status of Taiwan, the Ponghus [sic], Quemoy and Matsu, and not attempt to change this by violence.… It is another thing to contend that they should be quiescent while this area is used by the Chinats [Chinese Nationalists] as an active base for attempting to foment civil strife.84
In other words, Dulles believed that they “shouldn’t really expect the Communists to refrain from attacking” so long as they allowed these activities to continue.85
Taipei similarly distrusted Washington. As Ambassador Drumright attempted to make clear to Dulles, Chiang would never accept a resolution through negotiations between Washington and Beijing that would put Taipei’s future totally in American hands.86 Smoot reported that Chiang feared that “his people are beginning to see him in the role of a puppet who dangles from a string to the US and who is denied the right to use his own vast experience and discretion.”87
Dulles, however, increasingly understood the crisis in quite different terms. Although he advocated preparedness and was willing to sound belligerent, he sought to avoid any use of force and searched assiduously for a compromise solution. On the very first day of shelling, he talked about a peaceful modus vivendi.88 Although historians have labeled his later public assertions of flexibility to have been an exercise in public relations, according to Rand analyst Morton Halperin, Dulles “constantly needed to be pressed by his staff to maintain his tough position.”89
Opposition to a conciliatory approach arose in many quarters of the administration. In particular, the desire of the secretary to internationalize the confrontation by taking it to the United Nations proved disturbing. The UN initiative got no support from Dulles’s Far Eastern bureau or from the JCS. Marshall Green, then regional planning adviser at the State Department, “thought it was a crazy idea”.90 Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke warned of the trickiness of Communists who might accept demilitarization and then seize the islands.91 Not surprisingly, Walter Robertson remained one of the staunchest opponents of a flexible policy toward Beijing. He argued that a Nationalist evacuation of Jinmen would not resolve the crisis because of Mao’s determination to seize Taiwan. And he reminded Dulles of “other exposed small countries along the Sino-Soviet periphery [that] would wonder if they, too, might be considered expendable by the US when the heat was really on.”92 The China desk even opposed Dulles’s desire to have a third country, perhaps Japan, intercede.93
Despite all this advice, Dulles persisted. He told Robertson and the JCS that 90 percent of the UN membership favored admitting Beijing and making Taiwan into a UN trusteeship. Only Washington had been able to derail the effort, but the United States could not keep the China-Taiwan issue off the UN agenda indefinitely.94 Even if it became nothing more than an initiative that would improve Washington’s image in the UN, it seemed worth pursuing.95
However tempting it might have been, Dulles did not use his growing irritation with Chiang as an excuse to disassociate Washington from the Nationalist cause. Even when Gerard Smith, his policy planning director, pointed out that abandonment of the offshore islands would strengthen the Two Chinas policy that Dulles preferred, as well as eliminate a flash point that both Mao and Chiang could exploit, Dulles demurred. Under pressure from Beijing, the United States could not back down.96
Eisenhower, even more boldly than Dulles, sought a quick remedy to the crisis. In practical terms, propelled by his understanding that the offshore islands constituted a military liability, he came back repeatedly to the evacuation of soldiers from the islands. But in contrast to his proposals in 1954–1955, he now clearly recognized that Chiang Kai-shek comprised the biggest barrier to resolving the problem. Accordingly, he seems seriously to have contemplated eliminating the Generalissimo. On September 11 he talked with Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy, who wondered if there might be someone in Taiwan who could take over Chiang’s position if the United States underwrote a coup.97 That scenario continued to interest Eisenhower long after McElroy proposed it.
Just ten days later, Eisenhower emphasized to British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd his awareness that he lacked popular support for the U.S. position on the islands. Thus the president did not reject Lloyd’s suggestion that he consider a foreign ministers meeting if the Warsaw talks did not make progress in settling the crisis, although he warned it might be impossible because of U.S. public opinion. Most strikingly, Eisenhower confided in Lloyd that he had offered Chiang a trade of amphibious equipment for an evacuation of the offshore islands. He did not want to encourage a Nationalist assault on China, but he “was ready to ‘bribe’ Chiang in any reasonable way to remove his forces.” Chiang, however, refused, saying, as he had before, that if Jinmen and Mazu were surrendered, he would leave the presidency. Eisenhower then candidly remarked that replacing Chiang might be a good idea and that he had explored the possibility but had not found any suitable candidates. So incendiary were these thoughts that the U.S. version of the memorandum of conversation made no mention of Eisenhower’s remarks.98
Pursuing the idea of divestiture that he had found so attractive 3 years earlier, and that his secretary of defense and the JCS now also favored, Eisenhower asked General Twining to have Pentagon analysts look earnestly for ways to move Chiang’s forces off the islands. He talked again about giving Chiang amphibious craft. Eisenhower believed that chances of returning to the mainland were small and that Chiang’s rhetoric was for internal political purposes.99
Eisenhower both telephoned and wrote a reluctant Dulles that he wanted to offer Chiang the choice of an amphibious lift capability that could transport 15, 000–20, 000 of his men to the Chinese mainland in exchange for relinquishing the islands. He raised the prospect just days after Dulles had told reporters that Washington had “no commitment of any kind” to help Chiang return to the mainland and that it would be “foolish” to maintain troops on Jinmen once the confrontation ended.100 But Eisenhower felt sure that the deal would improve Chiang’s standing with American and world opinion. Eisenhower had discussed the proposition with the newly appointed ambassador, George Yeh, who had appeared to voice some interest, objecting only that there would have to be peace in the area before Taiwan could act on a plan of this sort. After Beijing declared a temporary interruption of the shelling, permitting unimpeded resupply, Eisenhower sought to appeal immediately to Chiang despite the likelihood that the Generalissimo would not accept the proposal.101
Eisenhower’s urgency reflected sensitivity to public unhappiness regarding the offshore islands. One poll found that 91 percent of those asked preferred to turn the matter over to the United Nations, and 61 percent favored Taiwan becoming a ward of the UN.102 Letters and telegrams to the White House ran overwhelmingly against involvement in war over the islands as did mail to Congress and the Department of State.103 Vice President Richard Nixon lashed out at bureaucrats who had undercut U.S. policy by leaking that 80 percent of letters to the State Department opposed the offshore island strategy.104 Elite opinion also disparaged the official posture. A meeting at Harvard University, arranged by Dulles’s friend and former colleague Robert Bowie, revealed harsh criticism. Edwin O. Reischauer, the nation’s most respected Japan historian, subsequently wrote Dulles, “in my experience at Harvard during the past twenty years, I cannot remember any important foreign policy problem on which a similar group would have been so unanimously out of sympathy with important aspects of our government’s position.”105
Journalists similarly voiced overwhelmingly negative assessments. Columnist Joseph Alsop, a longtime partisan of the Chinese Nationalists, angrily blamed Eisenhower for the crisis.106 James Reston of the New York Times pointed out that there had been no public debate regarding the offshore islands and yet the president seemed willing to go to war over them.107 In fact, according to Marquis Childs in the Washington Post, the JCS had opposed garrisoning so many soldiers on the islands but had been circumvented by their chief, Admiral Radford, who encouraged Chiang.108 The reality according to Walter Lippmann of the New York Herald Tribune was that the United States would not be able to defend the islands and that eventually Jinmen would have to be abandoned, a thought echoed by the Detroit Free Press.109
To Democratic Party leaders facing midterm elections, the Strait confrontation presented a perfect opportunity to call Eisenhower irresponsible. Having spent much of the period from 1953 to 1958 in disarray, the Democrats finally coalesced during 1958.110 Dean Acheson, who had been exiled from politics in large part because of Republican indictments of Truman administration China policy, took delight in attacking Dulles and Ike on China. “We seem to be drifting, either dazed or indifferent, toward war with China,” he warned, “a war without friends or allies and over issues… which are not worth a single American life.”111 When Truman came out in support of Eisenhower, a distraught Acheson pleaded with him to reconsider.112 Adlai Stevenson, the party’s standard bearer, joined the Democratic chorus, insisting that the islands were not a part of Taiwan.113
Dulles worried throughout the confrontation with China about congressional backing. He kept some thirty key members alerted to developments through a biweekly confidential letter, which he even distributed to their homes while they were out of session.114 Senator Wayne Morse (D-OR)right from the beginning declared that he would oppose any United States role in defending the offshore islands.115 Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Theodore F. Green (D-RI), who favored recognition and admission of Beijing into the United Nations, appealed directly to Eisenhower to end the dangerous entanglement.116 Lyndon Johnson (D-TX), having as Senate majority leader assembled a bipartisan coalition to support Eisenhower on Lebanon, refused to do the same over the offshore islands and privately expressed his opposition to Eisenhower and Dulles.117 John F. Kennedy (D-MA) publicly urged the administration to cut its losses, give up the offshore islands, and focus protection upon Taiwan.118
Aware of foreign criticism, the secretary nevertheless believed he could count on allies—NATO and SEATO—for support.119 The British, constrained by Hong Kong’s security and lingering public anger about Suez, gave their support reluctantly. Simultaneously, Foreign Secretary Lloyd urged Dulles to change U.S. policy.120 On the island of Taiwan, mainlanders expressed relief at Washington’s aid, but Taiwanese thought defense of the islands foolish and favored negotiation.121 Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea pledged support, but Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urged surrender of the islands, as did New Zealand and Japan.122 Use of bases in Japan to help defend Jinmen and Mazu would, the American ambassador believed, be severely circumscribed. Were nuclear weapons to be employed, the United States risked sparking a popular movement to throw the bases out.123 Only secretly did some Asian leaders welcome Washington’s efforts to limit Chinese Communist expansion.124
China’s People’s Daily newspaper enthusiastically reprinted the criticism that appeared in the Western press, which disapproval it believed would restrain American actions and further China’s goals.125 In October 5, Zhou Enlai observed to the Soviet charge d’affaires in China, S. F. Antonov that “America dares not engage in a war merely for the sake of Jinmen, because the American people and its allied countries oppose it.”126 Of course, China’s posture had risks, but Chinese belligerence also increased the numbers who wanted China in the world community.
Despite resumption of the ambassadorial talks and what appeared to be a triumph over the blockade, Eisenhower and Dulles could find no immediate resolution of the Strait problem. This proved true even though Mao dispatched Wang Bingnan to Warsaw with instructions to “use more sincere persuasion than harsh criticism… so as to avoid hurting their feelings.”127 China hoped renewed talks made UN involvement less likely. Dulles, meanwhile, believing that Chiang had provoked the crisis, sought to understand what conditions Beijing had found intolerable. The secretary reviewed and redrafted instructions sent to Ambassador Jacob Beam, who had finally replaced U. Alexis Johnson as head of the American negotiating team. He also thought about sending an emissary to Chiang Kai-shek to de-escalate the confrontation. Eisenhower friend and sometime adviser John J. McCloy, however, declined, as did others, arguing that he would want Chiang to make concessions going beyond what the president and secretary wanted but believed Chiang would be rigid. He did not want to expend energy and effort only to end up stymied like George C. Marshall and his ill-fated mediation mission of the 1940s.128
Mao’s approach worked too well. He got talks with Washington and aggravated tensions between Washington and Taipei. The United States urged Chiang ever more stridently to remove his bloated garrison from the offshore islands. Chiang insisted, “Taiwan will not be coerced into changing its position.… If necessary, Taiwan will fight alone.”129 But Mao realized that seizing the offshore islands would constitute a larger defeat in his strategy to reunify with Taiwan, severing the last land bridge to Taiwan and reifying the Two Chinas concept.130 Although the Chinese coast would be free of Nationalist coercion, revitalizing trade and economic development, this would come at the cost of national sovereignty.
Beijing thereupon backed away from the confrontation. Mao first discussed the idea of “shelling but not landing, cutting off but not completely” privately with Zhou on September 30 and then put it forward as a plan to the Politburo Standing Committee. In “A Message to Our Taiwan Compatriots” published in People’s Daily on October 6, Mao, in the name of Defense Minister Peng Dehuai, urged the Chinese on the island to recognize that the real enemy was in Washington, where imperialists advocated dividing China. Mao also sought to bolster Chiang’s power lest the United States install a more pliable leader not committed to the one-China principle.131 On October 25, Beijing announced that shelling would continue only on alternate days. This would allow Chiang’s forces to be resupplied and the islands to remain in Nationalist hands.132 Zhou told the Soviet ambassador that the Americans “[would] suspect… a tacit agreement between us and Jiang. The louder Jiang yells, the more suspicious the Americans will become.”133 The United States, in fact, concluded that the Chinese had been “deterred because of their fear of U.S. intervention,” never understanding Mao’s concern about maintaining a clear tie to Taiwan.134
Courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal.
The appearance of reasonableness from Beijing contrasted sharply with Taipei’s intransigence. Chiang Kai-shek insisted that dangerous United States convoying continue even after the alternate-day shelling had been announced. Chiang also emphatically rebuffed Mao’s suggestion of direct talks without American interference.135 Meanwhile, Eisenhower expressed increasing exasperation with Kuomintang inflexibility. To Under Secretary Herter he “spoke with considerable heat about continuing to have to do what Chiang Kai-shek wanted us to do,” remarking that, in response to disturbing comments made to him about the situation, he was almost prepared to pull the plug on Chiang.136
John Foster Dulles’s trip to Taiwan late in October can only be understood in this context. On October 8, Dulles remarked to a State Department group that to remedy the agonizing offshore island problem Chiang would have to realize the “narrow escape” he had had and the severe strain the situation had put on U.S. relations with its allies.137 The statement Dulles presented to Chiang on October 22 accused the Nationalists of defying free world opinion and putting the United States in jeopardy. Dulles insisted that Chiang accept a de facto armistice and cease commando raids, overflights, and efforts to blockade mainland ports.138 An outwardly calm but seething Chiang complained of U.S. mistrust of him and his intentions. His foreign minister made clear he would not accept a Two Chinas policy. Indeed, so firm was he on this that he told Dulles, “the use of tactical atomic weapons might be advisable,” to end the crisis. Dulles was horrified by Chiang’s ignorance about the impact of nuclear weapons and repeated what he had learned from his advisers about the millions of deaths that would result.139 Eventually they issued a compromise joint communiqué, which lacked the tough language Dulles had wanted. Chiang rebuffed suggestions he say that Taiwan “will never itself initiate war” and that his treaty with the United States was solely defensive. But, if not explicitly, Chiang did renounce the use of force.140
Dulles’s partial triumph did not come without cost. Washington sacrificed intelligence-gathering capabilities as Nationalist operations along China’s coast diminished, “blind[ing] itself” in search of peace.141 At the same time, Beijing conducted “psychological warfare” against the United States, firing shells at Jinmen on alternate days, guaranteeing continuing tension in what Dulles denounced as a policy of “promiscuous killing” for political purposes.142
CONCLUSION
The end of the 1958 Strait crisis, like the conclusion of the 1954 imbroglio, satisfied neither China’s yearning for unification nor Chiang Kai-shek’s plans to return to the mainland nor Washington’s desire to end the risk of war in the area. Looking back on the rapid escalation and quick reduction of tension, officials realized that they had taken big risks for little return. Not only did the Strait remain disputed, but it would stay a tinderbox.
China settled for a political victory that reasserted its claims to Taiwan, even though it brought unification no closer. The denouement graphically illustrated opposition to Two Chinas on both sides of the Strait, “shatter[ing] the United States scheme and upset[ting] its plan.” As Zhou Enlai later told Henry Kissinger, together Beijing and Taipei had “thwart[ed] the efforts of Dulles” to create two Chinas.143 Beijing would thenceforth abstain for decades from the use of force across the Strait. In the immediate future, according to Gong Li, professor at China’s Central Party School, the vigorous demonstration of Beijing’s claim allowed Mao to cut the armed forces and reduce the defense budget.144 Limited resources instead fueled internal economic transformation and political mobilization. Historian Chen Jian talks about the two as intertwined: “The shelling and the crisis played a role similar to the drumbeats in a Beijing opera—without them the drama [of the Great Leap Forward] would completely lose its rhythm, dramaticism, and theatricality.”145
The Nationalists, meanwhile, resumed harassment of the Chinese Communists despite their momentary collaboration. Chiang had no intention of capitulating to Mao or satisfying Eisenhower’s desire to strip the offshore islands of troops.146 Eisenhower would observe to the British prime minister during a March 1959 consultation that Chiang wanted significant numbers of soldiers in harm’s way to keep the United States obligated to rescue them and him.147
Eisenhower and Dulles harbored no illusions about their role. They realized they had been manipulated by both Mao and Chiang. Both were dismayed and angry. They recognized the unpopularity in the United States and among American allies of protecting the offshore islands. Occurring virtually on the eve of the 1958 midterm congressional elections, they watched the crisis assume partisan coloration as well. But even though they understood that the tiny islands possessed no intrinsic importance and that most Americans did not know where they were, the events of 1954 and 1958 rendered abandonment untenable.148 Indeed, the crises compelled an unwelcome rigidity. Eisenhower, for instance, explained to Defense Secretary McElroy that Dulles “tends to take a somewhat stiffer view than he holds.”149 In the wake of such a confrontation, compromise could put them, their party, and their political agenda in jeopardy. The offshore islands might seem expendable to many, but that did not mean the American people were ready to have Eisenhower and Dulles jettison Chiang and improve relations with Mao.
