Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, China, Volume XIX

147. Letter From the British Ambassador (Caccia) to Secretary of State Dulles⁰

Washington, October 1, 1958.

Dear Mr. Secretary: As I told you this morning, the Foreign Secretary has asked me to let you have [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] what the Chinese have been saying to the Indians. This I enclose. Part of it SELWYN LLOYD read to you when he last saw you in New York on the 26th September.¹ [2-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] But I thought that you might yourself wish to glance through it before you leave Washington for the weekend.

Two points arise. The first is that the Chinese are giving the Indians, as well no doubt as others, a garbled account of your position and of the Warsaw talks. SELWYN LLOYD thought that you might therefore like to consider whether it would be worth putting the record straight with the Indians, even if there is no genuine misunderstanding in Peking.

[4 lines of source text not declassified] for what it is worth you may like to know that our Chargé d’Affaires in Peking considers that there is little doubt that the Chinese are genuinely trying to use the Indians as mediators. Meanwhile we have had a separate message from Malcolm Macdonald that Parthasarathi, the Indian Ambassador in Peking whom he knows well, is entirely reliable. That is to say, he would not willfully be misleading and would report accurately what was said to him.

Most sincerely,

Harold Caccia

[Enclosure]²

SUMMARY OF CHINESE VIEWS AS EXPRESSED TO THE INDIAN EMBASSY, PEKING

[2-1/2 pages of source text not declassified] The British Embassy in Peking has [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] learned the following from the Indian Embassy there. The Chinese had described the United States proposals at Warsaw as quite unacceptable. The Indians were given to understand that these proposals involved a ceasefire under which the United States could continue to reinforce the offshore islands. They were told that nothing less than the evacuation of the offshore islands would be acceptable to the Chinese. Although the situation was so serious the Chinese would try to keep the Warsaw talks going.

The Indian Embassy in Peking apparently interpreted recent Chinese demands for United States withdrawal from the entire Taiwan area simply as a hardening of the Chinese bargaining position in response to what they alleged to be United States intransigence.

In a later discussion the British Embassy in Peking learned from the Indians that the Peoples Daily Editorial of September 28 on the question of a ceasefire represented the personal views of Chou En-lai. Chou specifically separated the question of the offshore islands from that of Taiwan. The latter, he said, could be discussed with the United States as soon as the former question was settled or after an interval of five years. As regards the Warsaw talks, it was, in the Chinese view, up to the United States to make the next substantial move.

0. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204, UK Officials Correspondence with Secy Dulles/Herter. Secret; Personal. The source text bears the notation by Phyllis D. Bernau: “Sec saw. PDB.”
1. See Document 130.
2. Secret.