793.02/11–1053: Telegram
No. 151
The Secretary of
State to the Embassy in the
Republic of China1
niact
423. Eyes only Nixon2 from the Secretary. Understand there has been cabled you text of questions and answers at my press conference Monday3 as to whether our ban against Chinese Communist recognition was “forever.”4 Question was unexpected and answer [Page 331] extemporaneous and I regret it occurred while you were at Taipei. However, for your strictly confidential information, would point out that it happened that the President had several times, and indeed that very morning, asked me to make a statement along this line.
- Drafted by Secretary Dulles.↩
- Vice President Nixon visited the Republic of China Nov. 8–12, in the course of a trip through Asia and the Middle East; for his oral report of Dec. 23 to the National Security Council, see Document 163.↩
- Nov. 9.↩
-
According to a transcript of this portion of the press conference, the relevant question and answer read as follows:
“Q. Mr. Secretary, on the possibility of the ultimate admission of Red China, is there any—however indefinite—procedure or any situation which this Government has envisaged which might make that acceptable to us at some future time?
“A. I do not think that this Administration has ever said that it would be forever opposed to a recognition of a Communist Government in China. We have said that so long as the Communist Government in China is a proclaimed aggressor in Korea and has not purged itself, so long as it is promoting aggression in Indochina and so long as it is in general conducting itself in a way which is not becoming of a nation which presumably has the obligations that are expressed in the Charter, so long as those conditions exist, it seems to us quite out of order to consider the matter.”
The page of transcript bears the following notation in Dulles’ handwriting: “Shown to President and approved by him Nov. 9, 1953. JFD” (Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “UN Matters”)
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