On January 19, 1961, as temperatures plummeted and snow fell steadily on the city of Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy met for the second and last briefing before Kennedy’s inauguration. Both sessions had been scheduled to allow the sitting president to school his young and inexperienced successor on the problems he would face and the powers he could exploit against threats and challenges. After a long private conversation and an intense exchange with members of the cabinet present, Eisenhower and Kennedy spent a few last minutes lingering next to the large conference table in the White House West Wing.1 During those moments, according to Clark Clifford—Kennedy’s lawyer, liaison with the Republican administration, and a veteran of the Truman administration—Eisenhower abandoned his otherwise gracious demeanor and warned that Kennedy’s actions on China, alone among the policies he might follow, could bring the former president out of retirement. Clifford later recalled “If Kennedy recognized communist China, as some liberal Democrats urged, Eisenhower said he would attack the decision and try to rally public opinion against it. Kennedy did not comment, but I had no doubt that Eisenhower’s warning had its desired effect.”2
Historians and policymakers have accepted and retold this story for decades. They used it to explain Kennedy’s unwillingness to change a China policy he allegedly did not believe made sense.3 Dean Rusk, Kennedy’s secretary of state, for instance, wrote in his memoir that to alter China policy “would have been one hell of a battle” because of Eisenhower’s opposition.4 Thus, however much Kennedy wanted to rectify the China situation, Eisenhower kept him from doing the right thing.5
The truth is that the incident, told and retold in the books about Eisenhower’s presidency, Kennedy’s Camelot, and U.S.-China relations, almost certainly never happened. The event cannot be definitively ruled out; the three men who spoke and listened that day are dead. But Eisenhower’s views on China belie this contention. That Eisenhower would have tried to coerce Kennedy regarding the Chinese contradicts—indeed is diametrically opposed to—Eisenhower’s ideas about China. In fact, as this study makes clear, Eisenhower believed the United States should, and eventually would, open diplomatic relations with Beijing, anticipated China’s entry into the United Nations, and thought that Washington’s efforts to smother a rising China had put it in an embarrassing position with allies and adversaries.6
Given the many issues on which Republicans and Democrats bitterly disagreed—most especially the adequacy of defense capabilities—China would not have merited Eisenhower’s remarkable vehemence. In fact, both men had other issues on their minds. As the snow accumulated outside, fighting in Laos seemed the most immediate problem. Eisenhower thought not about China but focused on the Soviet Union, Europe, and Cuba, just as the incoming president worried about Moscow and Berlin, not Beijing.
The reported intimidation seemed plausible to historians and subsequent policymakers because of the tough anti-China rhetoric often heard during Eisenhower’s eight years, the Taiwan Strait crises, the assumptions about Kennedy’s flexibility on relations with Beijing, and the disappointment of those anticipating change that did not materialize. A threat by Eisenhower also appeared of a piece with the president’s actions in the third world: covert operations in Iran and Guatemala, exaggeration of crises in the Congo and Egypt, as well as a determination to undermine the government of Cuba.
Furthermore, campaigning had revealed considerable friction between the president and senator. The frigid winds blowing outside the White House that January day reflected the frosty assessment each man had of the other. The previous summer Eisenhower had told a friend, “I will do almost anything to avoid turning my chair and the country over to Kennedy.”7 Eisenhower had disparaged Kennedy’s brashness, impertinence, and incompetence. He worried about the young man’s naiveté and resented Kennedy’s suggestion, however indirect, that Eisenhower had been asleep in the Oval Office. Kennedy did, in fact, believe that Eisenhower had squandered time and opportunity, occasionally referring to him as “that old asshole.”8 When the two finally met in December 1960, the oldest and, soon-to-be, youngest president approached each other warily.
China did, of course, come up during the general exchange among those gathered at the White House. Eisenhower expressed his dismay regarding the unfolding tragedy in Laos, telling Kennedy, “you might have to go in there and fight it out” and do so “unilaterally.”9 Kennedy apparently responded with a question about how to keep the Chinese Communists out, but Eisenhower replied “that he did not think that the Chinese Communists wished to provoke a major war.”10 Eisenhower had delayed action not because of the Chinese but, he asserted, because intervention with its long-term consequences should be the new president’s decision. C. Douglas Dillon, under secretary of state, also thought that Eisenhower “got a certain inner satisfaction from laying a potentially intractable problem in Kennedy’s lap.”11 China per se did not constitute a significant issue in the briefings.12
As for the substance of relations with China, careful historical scrutiny establishes that Eisenhower harbored fewer misgivings about China than did Kennedy. Although both men found their options severely circumscribed when it came to Chinese affairs, Eisenhower disparaged much of what passed for China policy under his own administration. The president allowed himself simultaneously to be constrained and emboldened by domestic politics. He took risks during two China-Taiwan Strait crises that made war in Asia more, not less, possible. Eisenhower found these experiences frustrating. He did not want to revisit them or expose himself or his country to further danger at the hands of Taiwan’s difficult leadership. He understood that in reality two Chinas existed and that Washington had to deal with both.
Kennedy, by contrast, personally as well as politically believed that he had to hold the line on China. Although often a risk taker, he proved especially cautious when confronting this Cold War dilemma. He feared that Republicans in general, not Eisenhower in particular, would pillory him for a new China policy as they had Harry Truman when he allegedly lost China. Altering the direction of U.S.-China relations did not seem worth the damage to the rest of his foreign and domestic agenda.
Beyond all this, Kennedy did not trust the Chinese. He became obsessed by Beijing’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons and remained suspicious about the authenticity of the Sino-Soviet rift. “A dispute over how to bury the West is no grounds for Western rejoicing,” he warned.13
Ultimately, neither president changed the direction of Sino-American relations, damaging the nation’s reputation as well as laying the country open to repeated threats in Asia. Eisenhower openly complained about the folly of trying to isolate the Chinese. Kennedy only whispered to colleagues that he wished he could follow a different policy. History simply does not support the idea that Eisenhower would have sought to intimidate his successor on China, nor does it suggest that Kennedy could have been so easily unsettled had he genuinely wanted to reinvent China policy.
The conclusion to be drawn is that the episode either did not happen, or misunderstanding and miscommunication made the exchange between Eisenhower and Kennedy something that it had not been. Perhaps Clark Clifford wanted to excuse Kennedy or blame Eisenhower for bad policy choices on China.14 As a result, false assumptions about China policy discussed on January 19, 1960, have colored interpretations of the Eisenhower years and Kennedy’s presidency. These are errors that this volume seeks to correct, using new sources from the Chinese and American sides as well as different perspectives on the people and events of the period.