It's the Way that You Do It

Crisp and cool in a newly pressed spring suit, Dean Acheson faced his weekly press conference. He knew what was coming. The 130 reporters who crowded into the room last week had carefully studied two forthright speeches on China made by top State Department officials a few days before (TIME, May 28), and were ready with a barrage of questions. Assistant Secretary Dean Rusk had said that Chiang Kaishek, and not the Communists, was the authentic representative of China's millions; Rusk also hinted that the U.S. stood ready to help any revolt against China's "foreign masters." State's Republican Consultant (with rank of ambassador) John Foster Dulles had added: "The Mao Tse-tung regime is a puppet regime . . . It is imperative that we move quickly." Did these speeches, as they clearly seemed to indicate, represent a switch by the U.S. to a strong China policy?

Acheson smoothly scooped up the ball and tossed it back. Now, the usual way to answer that kind of a question, he said, is to say, I'm glad you asked that question. Acheson's audience laughed appreciatively. Then, Acheson continued: there was no new policy, and the Rusk speech didn't indicate any; it was simply a restatement of the Administration's long-standing views on China. Did Acheson think the words were well chosen? Now that wasn't kind, said the Secretary; he wouldn't attempt to criticize the literary composition of his colleagues. But wasn't this the first time, the newsmen persisted, that this strong point of view had been expressed by any high State Department official? Conceded Acheson: so far as he could remember, it was.

Actually, neither Rusk's nor Dulles' speech had been read in advance by Acheson, though the Secretary knew the speeches were to be made. Such clearances aren't necessary, a State Department man explained, unless you intend to say something new, in which case the speech should be submitted to an Acheson helper named Jeffrey Kitchen. Rusk had thought he was only restating the obvious, and was as surprised as anyone else when the British Foreign Office began expressing alarm, and the State Department issued a hasty handout saying that China policy is unchanged.

One of diplomacy's ancient devices, in spreading a self-protecting fog, is to make changes while solemnly asserting that no change has been made. This was obviously what was happening in Foggy Bottom: State's Asia policy had been going through a slow strengthening over the past several months. In all of Dean Acheson's denials last week, he did not once deny that Rusk and Dulles had correctly stated State policy. His principal objection seemed to be that they should not have made it so clear.

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