794A.5 MAP/3–3151
Memorandum by the Director of International Security Affairs (Cabot) to the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Burns)
Subject: Establishment of a MAAG Formosa.
Reference is made to your memorandum dated March 26, 19511 on the subject given above.
As I indicated in the ISAC meeting yesterday,2 the Department of State is in full agreement with the Department of Defense on the need for the immediate establishment of a MAAG Formosa and that the initial increment for that MAAG should be selected, briefed, and be sent to Formosa as promptly as possible in order “to survey the actual requirements and to handle MDAP equipment expected to arrive in the near future”. In this connection a recent telegram (Taipei 1286, March 24)3 indicates the importance of refining for the MDAP programs for Formosa.
The Department of State is not prepared, without further consideration, to agree with the Department of Defense recommendation that “CINCFE, as Commander-in-Chief of an operational theater, be authorized to initiate and execute such matters of a military nature as he considers necessary and urgent, but that he be charged with [Page 1615] immediately and simultaneously informing the Department of Defense, the Ambassador and the MAAG Chief of any such actions”. It is also noted that your memorandum states that the Joint Chiefs of Staff “have concluded that the current mission of the Commander-in-Chief, Far East (CINCFE), with respect to Formosa and the military importance of the island dictate that all U.S. military activities on Formosa be the responsibility of CINCFE”. The Department of State believes that a set of military and economic objectives consistent with our foreign policy should be pursued with respect to Formosa, requiring coordinated action in policy formulation and in administration. I do not need to mention the difficult political problems which relate to Formosa. Moreover, the ECA program for Formosa is being formulated to provide economic assistance to the basic economy of the island including the furnishing of common use items for existing Chinese Nationalist forces and the support of the Formosan budget and the military component thereof. Clearly the military and the economic assistance programs for Formosa should be closely coordinated. The same considerations will apply in connection with the Fiscal Year 1952 program. I should, therefore, want to discuss informally with you the reasons why the Department of Defense considers the military factors to be of such importance as to require that all U.S. military activities on Formosa be treated as occurring in an operational theater.
The discussion which I suggested in the foregoing paragraph will also be helpful to me in preparing a reply to certain policy questions raised by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget,4 which require a satisfactory response before the Director will recommend to the President the release of further MDAP Fiscal Year 1951 funds for the implementation of military assistance programs for Formosa.
Since I recognize the urgency of a prompt solution of this matter, I shall be glad to discuss this matter with you at your convenience.
I have designated Mr. Willard Galbraith to represent the Department of State on the proposed State-Defense-ECA working group which is to develop recommendations for ISAC on the relationships between the Minister, the ECA Mission and MAAG. Mr. Halaby5 advises me that he will designate the ECA representative shortly. I suggest that you have your representative get in touch with Mr. Galbraith directly so that the working group can get started at once.
- Not printed.↩
- The International Security Affairs Committee was an interdepartmental committee representing the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury, the Executive Office of the President, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Economic Cooperation Administration; its minutes may be found in ISAC Files: Lot 53 D 443.↩
- The reference telegram pointed out superfluities and omissions in the fiscal year 1951 military aid program and attributed them to the exclusion of the service attachés in Taipei from the planning process (793.5 MAP/3–2451).↩
- See Lawton’s letter to Webb, March 23, 1951, p. 1605.↩
- Najeeb E. Halaby, Jr., Assistant to the ECA Administrator for International Security Affairs.↩