Office of the Historian

S/P–NSC files, lot 61 D 167, “Formosa—NSC 146 Series”

No. 207
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler)1

top secret
Washington, June 3, 1954.

Subject:

  • Revision of NSC Record of Action for 199th Meeting—May 27, 1954

Paragraph 1136b,2 relating to the increased Communist Chinese threat to the Tachen Islands, should be revised to delete the words “and are an integral part of the defense of Formosa.”

These words were intended merely to show the reason for U.S. interest in the Tachen Islands. They can be read, however, as making applicable to those Islands the present policy regarding the defense of Formosa, contained in NSC 146/2 (paragraph 9). This [Page 444] was not intended and can be avoided without otherwise affecting the sense of the paragraph, merely by deleting these words.3

John Foster Dulles
  1. Drafted by Bowie.↩
  2. See footnote 3, Document 198.↩

  3. On June 3, in NSC Action No. 1146, the National Security Council agreed to amend NSC Action No. 1136–b to read as follows:

    “b. Noted that the President has authorized elements of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, as a routine incident to their patrol of the Formosan area, to pay friendly visits to the Tachen Islands lying off the east coast of China, which are held by the Chinese Nationalist Government and are closely related to the defense of Formosa, in order to make a show of strength that might deter the Chinese Communists from attacking these islands.” (S/S–NSC (Miscellaneous) files, lot 66 D 95, “Record of Actions by the National Security Council, 1954”)

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