Editorial Note
A memorandum of June 22, 1951, from Policy Planning Staff Director Nitze to Kenneth C. Krentz, drafted by Charles Burton Marshall, commented on a report on Third Party’s activities after his departure from the United States. Nitze’s memorandum stated that the attachment (not filed with the source text) raised some interesting questions because of discrepancies in the views stated by Third Party in his indirect conversations with Marshall and the views he expressed after leaving the United States. It stated that he was represented in the attachment as “doubting the existence of any real or potential cleavage in the Chinese Communist party” and “criticizing the withholding of Formosa from the Red Chinese” and that he had apparently “let on” that “he was doing a job in the U.S. more or less as an agent of Peiping” although “his faith in the effectiveness of the independent groups in Peiping”, as reported in the attachment, was “quite consistent with what was adduced in interviews in this country.” The memorandum speculated as to whether Third Party was dissimulating in his conversations in the United States or after his departure or was “just naive and behind the times” or “just a self-seeker without much sense of direction.” (S/P Files: Lot 64 D 563)