No. 109
Editorial Note
At a meeting of the National Security Council on June 18, there was some brief discussion concerning China in the course of a general discussion related to riots which were taking place in East Berlin and Czechoslovakia. According to a memorandum of discussion by Deputy NSC Executive Secretary Gleason, the President referred to the possibility of an uprising or revolt in China, but Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles and Special Assistant to the President C. D. Jackson informed him “that there was no intelligence to indicate the likelihood of dissension in China, and, indeed, that a rising in that country was the most remote of all the current possibilities.”
Later, when the discussion shifted briefly to the war in Korea, the following exchange took place:
“Mr. Stassen then said he wished to point out to the Council the ever-mounting pressure by our allies to relax the existing controls on trade with Communist China the moment the armistice was signed. He wondered, therefore, whether this was not the time to tighten control over trade with China, and perhaps to institute a naval blockade prior to the armistice.
“The President expressed no sympathy for this latter proposal, but emphasized his feeling that the Secretary of State should use every diplomatic weapon at hand in order to encourage the British and our other allies to hold the line on trade with China until the end of the political negotiations. We should do our best to impress on our allies our conviction that the existing controls on trade had been one of the main reasons why the Chinese Communists had [Page 205] sought an armistice, and it was vital, therefore, not to relax controls until we had achieved a settlement.” (Memorandum of discussion at the 150th meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, June 18, 1953; Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower papers, Whitman file)
This was recorded as NSC Action No. 817-d-(3): the National Security Council agreed that the Secretary of State should “continue intensified efforts to persuade our allies to refrain from relaxing their controls on trade with Communist China in the event of a Korean armistice.” (S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) files, lot 65 D 95, “Record of Actions by the National Security Council, 1953”)