Office of the Historian

Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, “Telephone Conversations”

No. 238
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, Prepared in the Department of State1

[Washington,] July 24, 1954—11:49 a.m.

Telephone Call to the President (at his farm)2

The Sec. referred to the plane incident.3 He said he called the British Amb. and told him it was going to break and they had better stop playing it down. Now they are protesting. The Sec. said with the Pres.’s approval he will issue the following statement: The Sec. read the statement.4 Then he said the British Embassy is glad for us to refer to their protest. Radford and Wilson are here and they have instructed Carney to send carriers as a useful gesture. The Pres. gave his approval.

  1. Apparently prepared by Phyllis Bernau; the initials “pdb” appear on the source text.↩
  2. The President was at his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.↩
  3. A British commercial airliner on a flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong had been shot down on July 23 by two Chinese Communist fighter planes about 30 miles south of Hainan Island.↩
  4. The Secretary’s statement, issued that day, announced that the passengers of the plane had included six U.S. citizens, three of whom had died, that the British Government had instructed its diplomatic representative in Peking to lodge a strong protest, and that two U.S. aircraft carriers had been ordered to proceed to the area and to protect further U.S. rescue and search operations. It also declared that the U.S. Government took “the gravest view of this act of further barbarity” and that the action to be taken by the United States would be subsequently announced. The text of the statement is printed in Department of State Bulletin, Aug. 2, 1954, p. 165.↩